


Letifer

by Terminallydepraved



Series: Dakeverse [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Blood and Violence, Compulsion, Cop!Gavin, Custom Clans - Dakeverse, Eventual Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Murder Mystery, Original Universe, Slow Burn, Vampire the Masquerade-esque World, Vampire!Nines, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-07-15 06:17:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 129,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terminallydepraved/pseuds/Terminallydepraved
Summary: Gavin Reed is a DPD beat cop determined to make detective by any means possible, and putting an end to a string of murders looks like the quickest way to accomplishing that goal. Unfortunately for him, he fails to account for the real culprit— or the thought that perhaps he isn't the only one on the hunt for a killer.(Now with cover art by Leetmorry!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hewwo so im a big fan of vampire the masquerade bloodlines and all that shit and this is a pretty self indulgent au that i couldnt quite resist after yougei and i talked about it one night. im sorely tempted to make this a chaptered work BUT that will solely depend on my time. i have a lot i have to get done writing wise before halloween hits so updates will be sporadic until im able to spend more time on it.
> 
> update: just so y'all know what this thing is, the tags refer to a custom universe i've been developing for a year or so now for a book series i'm writing involving vampires, custom bloodline clans, and all that good stuff. this story takes place in 2020, hundreds of years after the events of my book series, so there will be subtle references to past events that won't be elaborated on because spoilers. you don't need any info going in to enjoy this story though! it functions as a stand alone and all the lore and clan dynamics are explained in story. it's going to be a bit different from your usual vampire fic, but that's what makes it fun.
> 
> if you like this and the "dakeverse" (dakethumos-verse), consider following my author tumblr (tdcloud) for updates on when the main series will be available, or checking out my twitter (tdcloud_writes) where i post and talk freely about the project and clans and all sorts of dbh funtimes. Also, if you'd like to check out more of my work, check me out at tdcloudofficial.com for info on my original fiction!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Letifer, now with a cover image! The beautiful art below was done by the immensely talented Leetmorry, an artist you can find both on tumblr and twitter under the same name. Please check out their work, and of course, enjoy the fic below!

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The song of the city was a dark, melancholic thing as Gavin drove through the dingy Detroit streets. Melancholic enough to wash out the constant chatter coming from his radio mount, no matter how much he fiddled with the dials.

Gavin sighed and propped his elbow on the armrest, turning another corner to scan the next street with tired eyes. Nothing ever happened this late at night when he was on patrol. His luck wasn’t good enough for that. The murders seemed to wait for him to clock out and fall into bed before blowing up his phone with calls reporting it in. Exactly how Gavin loved to start his morning, he thought, taking in the empty streets morosely. A hot shower, a cup of coffee, and another drained, lifeless corpse located in some playground or dumpster can.

_…Robbery in progress… fourth and tenth… suspect armed…_

Fourth and tenth? Gavin almost perked up at that, but then he saw the street signs ahead. His lips curled into a pronounced grimace. He wasn’t even remotely close, and lo and behold, another officer was already calling in to say they were on their way. Fuck. Some bastards had all the luck. Gavin sighed loudly and roughly, tempted to bang his forehead against the steering wheel.

He resisted, but just barely. Gavin folded his arms on top of the wheel, taking the current street at a crawl. The houses here were small and rundown, interspersed with shops and facades far too decrepit to be the sites of reputable businesses anymore. Maybe once upon a time this had been a bustling area, but tonight it was about as cheery and prosperous as the grave. The sidewalks were chipped and cracked with undergrowth, and the moon overhead bled through the cloud cover. It’d be the perfect sight for a horror movie, Gavin mused as he turned yet another corner. Not a horror movie he’d watch personally, but one he could imagine being a box office hit if only because of the gore factor it’d hold.

The next street was similar to the dozen or so before it. Sparsely lit, dented garbage cans lining the driveways of the residentials while graffiti covered the fronts of stores that hadn’t seen business in longer than Gavin had been alive. The beams of his headlights cut a pitiful swath through the darkness, a late night fog beginning to blanket the street in a thin haze. Gavin drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and looked along the length of it, searching for something—anything—out of place. Anything at all. He’d take a fucking’ cat stuck in a tree at this point so long as it felt like he was doing something.

_… Squad car 190, please report your status…_

Ah. 1:45 already. Gavin looked away from the road to reach for the receiver, pulling it from its latch to report in. “This is 190, all clear,” he said, not bothering to listen to the reply. He tossed the plastic receiver back onto its hook. He lifted his head and… Wait… What the fuck? Where there had been nothing but empty street and disappointment before there now was a figure walking ahead of the car. Gavin furrowed his brow and glanced around. No side streets… Had they wandered out from a house while he was distracted? It’d only taken a second…

Gavin wrapped his hands around the wheel and sat up a little straighter. He narrowed his eyes and looked at the person carefully, driving a little closer. Looked to be about six foot, maybe a bit taller. Broad shoulders, dark hair. The lights given by the streetlights weren’t enough to make out more, but it looked like a young guy, dressed in black. Could this be the murderer? Fuck, wouldn’t that make for a great collar. Gavin’s blood pounded a little harder at the thought.

Even if it wasn’t, though, Gavin needed to do something. Either the guy was a serial killer or a potential victim, and while the killer always targeted hookers and the like, Gavin didn’t like this dude’s chances should the murderer decide to branch out a bit. He didn’t bother with the lights as he drove the car closer. No need to spook the guy, no matter who he turned out being.

_...robbery at fourth and tenth contained… no casualties… all officers in the area resume normal patrol schedule…_

Gavin glanced down at the receiver. He lifted his head and did a double take, because the street was now empty in front of him. What? He slowed down and checked his mirrors. Nothing. Gavin bit down on his bottom lip, twisting around in his seat. His eyes widened. Oh. There he was. Did he overshoot him? Weird… The guy was behind the car now, lingering just on the edge of a pool of light cast off a flickering streetlight. 

His eyes widened further, reaching towards his hairline. He could see him a lot better now that he was in the light, and holy fucking hell... There was a _lot_ to see. A lot of good and a lot of straight up unsettling. It probably said something about Gavin that the latter wasn’t enough to put him off from the former.

Gavin blamed that on the fact that he looked ripped directly from one of Gavin’s more self-indulgent fantasies. His skin was pale and nearly glowing in the weak light flickering through the grimy street lights overhead. And God, there was a _lot_ of skin on display for a night barely boasting forty-five degrees. Gavin swallowed and pulled the car into reverse, gliding backwards until he was level with the still figure. How was this guy not shivering? Not even a masochist would go outside without sleeves this far into fall…

Gavin cleared his throat and rolled down the window. A burst of cool air stung his cheeks the second he did, but he shook it off to do his fucking job. “Evenin’,” he called out, hoping this wasn’t one of the crazies he sometimes got this late at night. The guy moved, shifted, the black of his outfit just a shade darker than the night around it. He came closer and Gavin swallowed hard. “You alright?”

The streetlight directly above the squad car lit a dull circle against the asphalt ground. Like a protective circle the sphere of light was sundered by a new, long shadow when the guy stepped off the sidewalk and approached Gavin’s window. A hand settled on the roof. Gavin burned deep in his gut, then stopped breathing entirely.

The face that peered back at him was beyond any fantasy his mind could come up with. Sharp cheekbones, thick lashes, soft, full lips curved in a dispassionate line like something made of granite and alabaster. Gavin had been to museums, way back when and a long time ago when he’d let classmates and dates drag him along in misguided attempts at domesticating him. He’d seen statues of gods and heroes, of demons and muses— He’d heard stories of how they drove the artists to fits of insanity chasing their beauty. But this guy…

Jesus fucking Christ, they didn’t have anything on this guy at all. His bare arms were thick and muscled, his chest full and his waist narrow. The cut of his shape reminded Gavin of something out of a comic book. A little voice in his head said _porn,_ but he did his best to smother that with a wool blanket. Lusting over a civilian at first sight didn’t do his job any favors and… Oh. Yeah. He was working right now. Meant to be working. Not ogling. Shit.

Gavin didn’t realize that an awkward amount of time had passed until that perfect face moved. A furrowing of shapely dark brows broke the perfect mask of his face, and Gavin sucked in a breath of cold, stinging air. He tore himself from eyes like chips of sapphire to look at the steering wheel, the clock, the radio still buzzing every few seconds with new updates, status checks, and the general chatter of officers just like Gavin bored on their midnight patrols. Gavin gave a conspicuous cough. Smooth. Real fucking smooth.

“So, uh,” he began, carefully glancing at the guy once more. He hadn’t moved an inch, his forearm still propped on the top of the car as he leaned down to look at Gavin through the window. Seriously, how was this guy not freezing his surprisingly ample set of tits off? The shirt he wore was sleeveless and cut low down the underarms, emphasizing the lines of his waist and revealing the length of his armpits and a bit of ribs. The front was just as dramatic, a sharp V fit for any stripper. It was hard to tell from Gavin’s angle, but from the glimpse he had of the guy’s pants, they looked practically painted on. Gavin swallowed dryly, forcing himself to meet those beautiful, gemlike eyes once more. “You uh… You alright? It’s a bit late to be taking in the sights, isn’t it? There’s a killer on the loose.”

Instead of answering, the guy just blinked his eyes slowly. The soft black of his dark, dark lashes fell to his cheekbones like the wings of moths, fluttering away to give rise to blue once more. Something tightened in Gavin’s chest. That same… sucking, distressing feeling rolled over him again. He didn’t want to look away, even though something in his head told him he needed to. Those eyes… They were so gorgeous. This guy was fucking gorgeous. Weird, creepy, but so…

A sharp wave of interference sent the radio receiver screaming. Gavin jumped harshly, swearing under his breath. He twisted in his seat and reached over, switching the thing off. He turned back and found his window empty. What…?

“The fuck?” he muttered, the road ahead of him empty of all life. Gavin fumbled for his seatbelt and checked the rear view mirrors, catching the striking silhouette of the man halfway down the block reflected back at him. How the hell had he gotten that far? Gavin shook off the seat belt and pulled the keys from the ignition. He yanked open the door and got out of the car, pulling his standard issue jacket close to his chest as the cold night air surrounded him in an instant.

“Hey!” he shouted, swearing under his breath when his voice echoed loudly along the empty street. The guy paused, but didn’t turn. Gavin jogged after him, leaving the circle of light behind to follow the man into the darkness. “Hey, don’t just walk away from me! You think I’m in this fuckin’ outfit for the style points or something?”

The man rested his hands on his hips, lowering his head. From behind it looked an awful lot like patronizing, but Gavin was too chilled to think too hard on it. He slowed to a walk and grabbed the guy by the upper arm, intending to turn him around. His bare hand landed on equally bare skin.

“Holy shit,” Gavin hissed, pulling his hand away instantly. “You are freezing, dude.”

A sigh cut through the silence. The guy slowly turned around, peering over his shoulder at Gavin curiously. He said nothing. Gavin had the feeling this guy didn’t talk much if he didn’t want to.

“Not gonna say anything? No excuse to feed me?” Tough guy like this, Gavin figured maybe he just didn’t want to admit he was in trouble. Gavin crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, raising a brow until the guy got the hint to face him fully. Gavin gave him another once over. Still gorgeous. Damn. This was a shitty part of town, but those clothes of his looked expensive. An escort, probably. “Look, I get I’m probably the last person you want stopping you this late at night, but it’s my job, alright? You must have heard about all those murders. Some fuckin’ psycho going around killin’ hookers and the like. It’s not safe to be out here wandering. You should go home.”

Another slow, catlike blink. Gavin was careful not to look too closely at the guy’s face. He didn’t want to get distracted out here, especially when he was this far from the car.

But then the guy’s attention shifted. He looked off to the side, and Gavin let out a low sigh. He rubbed at the back of his neck. The man’s focus moved back onto him. Gavin froze when those blue eyes of his narrowed, locked on his throat. Sweat prickled Gavin’s hairline despite the cold. He slowly dropped his hand.

“It’s not safe out here,” the man said quietly. His voice was low and smooth like honey, compelling enough to take the strength right out of Gavin’s legs. “You should go.”

“Isn’t… That’s my fuckin’ line,” Gavin said, shaking the weird, warm itch off before it could settle over his skin like a web. He bared his teeth and closed his hands into fists. The tips of his fingers were going numb, so he couldn’t even imagine how cold this dude must be just standing around in that tight little getup of his. “I’m a cop. You don’t need to worry about me. You’re clearly the one who needs to go home. Let me give you a ride, alright?” He would hate himself a little more than he already did if he woke up come morning to a text from the precinct about another body being found drained and dropped in some gutter a few blocks away.

The man’s expression turned to stone, but after a few moments thawed. His pretty eyes rolled and his lips curled into something that might have been a smile if stone knew how to move like that. He took a step towards Gavin, snagging him by the sleeve. Before Gavin could wonder what he was doing, the man took another step, tugging him towards the car.

“Glad you’re seeing sense,” Gavin muttered, shrugging off the hand. Even through the fabric of his jacket he could feel just how cold the man’s hand was. He frowned pointedly and sucked in a bracing breath before pulling the coat from his shoulders. “Here,” he said, tossing it at the man. “Put it on before you freeze to death.”

The guy stopped. Gavin kept walking. You couldn’t pay him to stand still with it this cold out. He made a beeline for the car and shouted out, “Come on, man, I don’t have all night.”

“...Nines.”

Gavin paused at the door of the squad car, one arm wrapped around his middle while the other fumbled with the keys in the lock. “What?” he called out, trusting the guy was following.

A rustling of fabric. The crunching of expensive shoes on asphalt covered in hoarfrost.

“My name,” that rich, deep voice said. Gavin got the key into the lock, opening the door. “It’s Nines.”

“Well, get your ass in gear then, Nines,” Gavin said, lifting his head to look at the man. “We’re burning moonlight— Hey, where did you go?”

But the street was empty, no sign of life at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> managed to finish all of october's to-do list AND most of november's too, all before halloween. to celebrate that i managed to churn out the next chapter to this! 
> 
> Just a note: this fic does not have an update schedule. ive got it all planned out but i dont know when ill be doing chapters as any work i do on this will be in between my book projects. follow me on twitter (@tdcloud_writes) for status updates as they come!

The hustle and bustle of the bullpen was always strangely muted on the nightshift. Gavin didn’t mind; it made it easier to focus on the work, he always said. Less chances for some dipshit fresh off the street to yank him from his building leads. The perps in holding—largely drunks found stumbling around the dives downtown—were sleepy, hardly disruptive. Sure, the rest of the night crew was largely the same, sleepy-eyed and swallowing down yawns and coffee in equal measure, but for a glorified insomniac like Gavin, he felt right at home in his desk come three a.m. 

His pen scrawled across the routine report with an ease that spoke of long-held habit. He’d arrested a few petty thieves the night before, only a few hours before shift change. He’d put off the paperwork and now his wrist was paying for it. Gavin let out a sigh and rubbed tiredly at his eyes, finishing off one form before tossing it to the done-pile. Then, he started on the next. A handful down, fifty more to go. 

It probably would go faster if he stopped glancing at the computer screen every few minutes, eyes scanning the open case file on the latest body that had turned up in his patrol district. 

Same as the others found before, this body turned up in the bottom of a dumpster in some back alley, far from the main roads and sans a few liters of blood. Gavin grimaced as he scanned over the grisly details. He drummed his pen on the page he half finished. The higher ups were on the verge of calling this the work of a serial killer, and for good reason too. Every single body—regardless of where it was found or how poorly hidden—held the same sort of trauma wounds. The guys down in the coroner’s office were baffled by it. What sort of sicko mangled the jugular like that? They’d had some cases similar to it in the past where bodies had turned up bloodless and fucked up, but the entry wounds had been clean, almost clinical…

Gavin had hung around once, listening to the detectives postulate about it. He wasn’t supposed to be listening; beat cops weren’t really allowed to be privy to these kinds of cases. He was to do his job, report in the bodies, do some busy work and help facilitate the detectives with their investigations. Bullshit. Complete bullshit. Gavin was the one thinking about those prior cases. Gavin was the one digging through those dusty ass files and comparing the two. They’d gone cold years back, suspected cult shit that had petered out back in the nineties. Gavin ran his fingers through his hair and tapped his pen furiously against the stack of papers. He’d bet anything it was the same shit happening now, some new splinter group from it resurfacing without the same kind of slick, clean application the old faction operated under. 

Only, no one really seemed to want to think the two were connected. Either they didn’t like the idea of an old killer resurfacing or they just had their own ideas. But Gavin knew better. He had a hunch, and hunches were tantamount to instinct in this discipline. The detectives were missing something. If he could figure it out, he was sure it’d solve the whole thing. A neat and tidy case closed, one that would look great on his record. A whole heap of closure to the victims families, to the city still itching with the unease of another killer roaming the streets and prowling on its most vulnerable occupants. 

He stared at the crime scene photos and bit down on his inner cheek hard enough to taste blood. Pallid, bruised, and limp. Yeah, he was going to figure this out. He had to. That poor girl had her throat ripped out by  _ something  _ and Gavin was sure as shit going to get to the bottom of it. If he made detective because of it, it’d be a nice perk. It’d let him do even more in the long term. He was wasted as a beat cop. 

Gavin closed his eyes and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The pad of his thumb trailed down to stroke over the line of his scar. An old habit. He cracked open his eyes and stared at the blank, lifeless face littering the crime scene photos on his screen. Her personal information was just a quick scroll away. Maurissa Jameston, twenty-eight, divorced. No kids, a few petty priors for solicitation, public indecency, and public intoxication. Prostitute. Just like the rest. 

Somewhere in the precinct came the stuttering, hacking hiss of the old coffee maker chugging to life. Gavin leaned forward in his seat and braced his elbow on the desk, drumming his pen in time to the syncopated gurgles. They’d put out a basic warning to the neighborhood already to stay in after dark. It was hard to institute a curfew given where it was and the general dislike for police presences in the area, and it came as no surprise to Gavin that bodies like Maurissa’s kept turning up because of that. Even if people did heed the warnings and take it seriously, that didn’t stop people like her from needing to make rent somehow. Hell, last night Gavin had seen that first hand, that strange, aloof guy walking the streets all alone—

Gavin sent his pen flying when a stack of folders smacked the corner of his desk with a harsh  _ crack! _

“Jesus fucking christ!” he grunted, wheeling back his chair and jerking his head up to see Tina grinning like the demon she fucking was. “What the fuck, Chen? You tryin’ to give me a heart attack?”

“Thought you could use the wake up call,  _ Reed _ ,” she shot back, still smiling. “I just made coffee. You want a cup?”

God, what a bitch. Gavin felt the corner of his lip curve up in a smile and he ran a hand down his face, huffing out a lungful of air as his heart struggled to settle. Something about that guy from before got him wound up, like being watched by tiger at a zoo. Gavin looked at Tina and snorted. “I brought my own,” he said, nodding towards his thermos. “You couldn’t pay me to drink whatever radioactive sludge comes outta that ancient piece of shit.” 

Tina gave her eyes a roll, letting them fall on the screen of Gavin’s computer. “You can’t call yourself a DPD drone until you succumb to the call of the sludge,” she told him slowly. Gavin sat a little straighter, but didn’t bother trying to hide the open case files or autopsy reports. Tina’s lips quirked into the makings of a frown when she looked at him next. “Gavin, I—”

“Some of us hold ourselves to a higher standard, Chen,” he interjected, knowing what she was going to say and not willing to hear it again. “I’ll bring another thermos tomorrow and show you the beauties of a Keurig.”

He was just postponing the inevitable. Tina still smiled though, humoring for another couple of seconds. But it was just that: humoring. Tina pushed the files she’d slapped down off to the side and seated herself on the corner of his desk, crossing her arms as she leaned into Gavin’s field of view. Her back covered the computer screen. Gavin had to think that was on purpose. 

“How long have we known each other, Reed?”

Oh, great. This again. Gavin sighed and crossed his arms too, mirroring her pedantic pose. “Since the Academy,” he drawled. He pitched his voice wistful and batted his lashes at her. “Ours is a simple romance, comprised of star-crossed lovers who caught each other’s eyes across the obstacle track— Fuck, are those steel-toed?”

Tina pulled back her outstretched foot and didn’t bother to pretend to look apologetic as Gavin furiously rubbed his now-sore shin. “No, you’re just a little bitch.” She tapped the side of her boot against Gavin’s ankle pointedly. “You’ve been a little bitch since the moment we met, and I know you well enough to know that this?” She twisted around, patting the top of his monitor lovingly, “This is going to get you into hot water faster than you can say  _ Wow, Tina, I’m a little bitch!”  _

Gavin’s first instinct was to deny ever saying that. But… Well, they knew each other from way back. He’d said it before in less than opportune moments and he knew better than to remind her of that at a time like this. He settled on scoffing, kicking her leg away from his. “You don’t even know what I’m up to,” he muttered, glaring over at the other desks and the smattering of officers in them. This late at night, there was only a skeleton crew in the bullpen. Around half of them were out on patrol, the rest still here settling up with paperwork. After the night-lunch they’d switch over. Thinking of that… “Aren’t you supposed to be out on patrol right now? Where the fuck do you get off micromanaging me when you aren’t even out on the pavement yet?”

Tina didn’t even have the decency to look guilty. She lifted her hand and twirled a longish lock of hair around her finger. It was a tick Gavin was long familiar with. She always used to do that back during crunch nights before tests, back when they’d pull all nighters to cram. “Tonight’s a weird night for me,” she said cryptically. “Lieutenant’s already given me the go ahead to head out when I’m ready to, but with all that construction in my area it’s made a regular patrol a lower priority.” Her eyes roved a little before settling back on Gavin. They narrowed. “Don’t try to distract me. We’re beat cops, Gav. We don’t do the high profile cases. Those are fo—”

“For detectives, I know,” he grumbled. He kicked his foot against the leg of his desk, glaring at the routine paperwork still stacked on the desk in front of him. This wasn’t the first time he’d been caught sticking his nose in cases for the higher ups, and he supposed he should count himself lucky that he was caught by Tina this time and not the Lieutenant or—God forbid— _ Fowler.  _ He couldn’t hide the shudder the thought brought with it. “It just keeps happening on my fuckin’ route. Hell, last night I… Fuck, nevermind.” He covered his mouth with his hand and propped his elbow on the desk. He didn’t know if that guy got home alright last night, but there was no use thinking he hadn’t. Not until a body turned up at least. 

Tina tapped his shin with her foot again. It was gentle this time, no threat of another bruise. “It’s tough; I get it.” She turned a little and took in the still, bloodless face on his monitor. “It feels personal like that, but you… Gavin, you can’t let it be. Hell, I knew Maurissa. I knew half the girls they’ve brought into the morgue because of whatever sicko is out there doing this shit. You’ll do them more good by doing your job and letting the detectives do theirs, you know? If I went moonlighting on every dead hooker’s case just because I’d brought them in at one time or another, I’d never get anything done.” 

Gavin lifted his eye at that. Tina was shifting on the desk now, making as if to get up. She ran a different route than Gavin did, and even though they were the same rank, she tended to deal with different things than him. Dealing with the sex workers more often than not. A lot of the working girls didn’t take kindly to male officers. Tina was used to handling them when they didn’t want to come quietly, getting it through to them that complying would see them home faster than kicking, biting, and clawing would. Gavin slowly let his chin shift off his hand. 

“Speaking of hookers,” he led slowly. 

Tina raised a brow and slid off his desk to stand beside it. She picked up her stack of files and gave Gavin a really unappreciated look. “Don’t tell me that was all you took from what I just said,” she said flatly. 

He couldn’t help it. He snorted. Tina furrowed her brow and frowned at him, papping him on the nose with her folders. Gavin swatted the folders away, laughing a bit. “I just had a question is all,” he said, minimizing the tabs on his computer now that Tina wasn’t blocking the screen with her fat ass. He made sure to stare at the computer when he asked, “You ever heard of a prostitute or an escort named Nines?”

Tina hummed. “Doesn’t ring a bell. What’s she look like?”

Gavin’s face steadily began to burn. He coughed, clicking and opening things on his desktop that didn’t need to be opened just for the excuse to keep looking at it and not Tina. “Well…  _ He  _ has… uh. He’s tall. Blue eyes, dark hair. Wears a lot of leather, doesn’t seem to understand what a coat is for.” Body like an hourglass ticking down Gavin’s final moments. For a crazed, frantic moment he almost said as much, but a quick glance up at Tina and her— Fuck, her shit-eating grin had him swallowing the urge in an instant. 

“Don’t give me that fuckin’ face,” he hissed, taking a swipe at her and missing as she dodged. “I just ran into him last night and when I tried to give him a lift home, he ran.”

“Sounds like a total dreamboat.” Tina grinned like the demon she was. “But you managed to get his name? Did you chat him up while you offered him a ride?”

Gavin grimaced. “Just tell me if you know him.” If the guy lived around there he could at least sleep easy knowing he probably made it home alright. 

Tina shifted her weight onto one leg, popping her hip out as she pondered the question with more intensity than was necessary. Off in the distance the ancient coffee pop gurled and beeped, signalling its latest offering of sludge was now ready for consumption. Fuckin’ nasty. 

“Can’t say I know any sex worker named  _ Nines  _ of all things,” Tina eventually delivered, shaking her head. Her lips were curled into a smile, but her eyes were a bit more understanding. “He was out walking during your patrol? That had to be like, past midnight then, right? Did you tell him to go home?”

“Of course I told him to go home,” Gavin muttered. “That’s why I offered a ride. Dude was fuckin’ weird about it, though. I turned to unlock the car and when I looked back he was gone.” Just vanished into the darkness like something cut from the night itself. 

“Huh.” She looked longing towards the coffee maker. “You think he was on something?”

Gavin recalled how cold his skin had been. If he hadn’t felt that, he might’ve considered it a possibility. Anything that made you forget about the cold would have raised the body temperature though. Not to mention Nines’s eyes… They’d been way too clear to be the eyes of someone strung out on something. “Nah, he wasn’t high. His clothes were nice, too. Didn’t come off as a junkie at all.”

“Sounds like a right mystery.”

A sigh escaped Gavin’s lips. He knew that tone. “Go get your damn coffee, Chen,” he grunted, knowing already her attention was gone. He looked at his mountain of paperwork and shifted in his chair unhappily. He really didn’t want to do this shit right now. Even thinking about Nines had him wound up, a spring coiled in his gut waiting for a reason to go off. 

“Don’t mind if I do,” Tina singsonged, waltzing over to the break room where the coffee pot lurked in all its gloomy glory. A few other cops were heading that way now too, following the siren’s song of caffeine. Some were strapping on their holsters too, shrugging on their overcoats to get ready to head out for their patrols. Gavin leaned back in his seat and contemplated it all. Tina would probably head out too, late to her dead shift on a blocked off segment of street. 

Gavin sighed. He reached out his hand to grab his pen. This paperwork wouldn’t finish itself… 

His hand landed on the mouse instead. Click. Click. The autopsy photos were back. Maurissa Jameston laid out in all her cadaverine glory. Gavin blinked a few times, his vision blurring. Between one blink and the next her features shifted. Her hair darkened. Gavin saw bright, piercing blue where the report stated  _ Eye color: brown.  _

God, he was going to regret this. 

Before he could talk himself out of it, Gavin was closing down the windows on his computer and kicking back his chair. He grabbed his thermos and keys, snatching his holster from its place in the bottom drawer of his desk. 

“Hey, Chen!” he called out, catching Tina before she could set her to-go cup on her desk. She eyed him critically when he approached, no doubt sensing his bad idea in the making. “I got a deal for you.”

“I’m not gonna like this deal, am I?”

Gavin shrugged. “Your wrist might not,” he said, clipping the holster around his waist, “but you’ll get to cozy up with that space heater of yours if you say yes.”

Tina sighed, already seeing where this was going. She set her cup on the desk and kneaded at her eyes after glancing at the stack of papers on his desk. Her own was practically bare. The gears were turning in her head. It wasn’t technically breaking the rules. Not when she knew how to sign his name better than he did. 

Gavin whipped out his cellphone and flipped to the weather app, showing her the screen. “It’s a balmy thirty-four degrees outside tonight,” he said smoothly like the weather guy on channel eight he hated more than the sports guy on four. “Perfect for patrolling a dead end street riddled with potholes. I mean, unless you’d  _ prefer  _ cleaning up the sludge you call coffee from your upholstery again—”

Tina threw up her hands before he could finish outlining one of her more visceral nightmares. “Fine, fine!” she said. “I yield. But don’t you dare get used to this,” she warned, jabbing Gavin in the chest with her finger. “I’m not trying to reward bad behavior here. You’re lucky I love my space heater more than keeping you out of trouble.”

“Well, obviously,” he said, batting her hand away as he practically sprinted towards the glass doors that led to the lobby below. “You’re practically dating your space heater.”

“Bitch!” she shouted, drawing more than a few eyes in their direction. 

“Right back at you, bitch!” Gavin called over his shoulder. He laughed to himself as he pushed through the doors and slid over the counter between him and the outside world. The half-asleep desk guard barely looked up as he did so; tired bastard, Gavin couldn’t blame him at all. 

Patrol was going to suck ass without his coat to keep him warm, and even as Gavin pushed out the doors and began the long sprint to his squad car, he shivered. Partly from the cold, partly from excitement. If he could just stumble upon that guy again… 

Well, it was a longshot either way. Gavin had all night for luck to take pity on him and a full thermos of coffee to console him if it didn’t. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hewwo! we're getting into my custom clan stuff now, so if you've any questions feel free to let me know! i plan on making a sorta comprehensive lore reference sheet for you guys with all the info on each clan once i get back from my con. this time we get to meet the Cult of Poveglia, Nicciave, and hear stirrings of Nines's clan, the Enforcers. Enjoy!

The nights were growing colder. Colder, and somehow more frantic. Nines moved through the dark streets with a purpose behind his steps that couldn’t be articulated or defined. He needed to be somewhere; he needed to finally see some results. 

Another body had turned up on his watch. Another human committed to the earth before their time. The powers that be were breathing down the back of Nines’s neck with increasing ferocity, and though this wasn’t his usual job, he knew better than most just how important it was to see it through to the end. 

This case was sensitive. It wouldn’t allow for anything else. 

The night had been spent thus far trying to find witnesses. Nines had wandered towards the clubs and their pulsing beats, blending among those brave enough to risk the danger and cold living so openly on the streets. He’d asked around, received a lot of cold stares and muttered negatives. A few had almost seemed interested in talking to him, in giving him some information, but prolonged conversation told him well enough what they were truly after. 

Nines slipped his hands into the tight, too-small pockets on his skinny jeans. Perhaps this outfit was… detrimental to the investigation. But... he needed to blend, didn’t he? He’d always had a severe look about him, even in life. The tight, skimpy clothes helped him assimilate. They lowered expectations, helped him shimmy past raised guards. A sigh was building in the base of Nines’s throat. He let it free and didn’t flinch when it didn’t color the air with a plume of condensation. It didn’t matter much now. He had his plan and he was going to stick to it. Doubting himself wouldn’t help him. It wouldn’t help those humans who already met the one he was searching so hard for. 

Well, one of the ones he was searching for. He had another he needed to see now. He pulled his cell phone free from his back pocket and thumbed over the screen a couple of times until it registered his cold touch. The messages were still open on his app. The street they were meeting at was just ahead, sequestered between some rundown old grocery and the wall of what he knew had held a library some odd fifteen years before. Funny how things changed, how they degraded. Time had its fingers in everything like that. 

Sometimes Nines wondered if those fingers weren’t dragging him down too, in its own way. 

A shadow blurred the alleyway ahead of him. The phone in his hand dinged softly with the arrival of another message. 

_ Here. _

Nines tapped out a quick  _ me too  _ before closing the app and shoving the phone back into his back pocket. The street he walked was empty, rundown, the perfect place for a meeting when one didn’t want to be seen. Nines blinked as his eyes shifted, caught on the movement of that shadow like a wolf pinpointing the weakest mark in a herd. The darkness was thick, but not thick enough to obscure the sight of his informant. That odd, bulbous silhouette of his was unmistakable. Nines put on another burst of speed and crossed the last road between them, joining the one waiting ever so patiently in the alley. 

“Hello, Rooney,” Nines greeted, tone polite but distant. All business, just as it should be. “It’s been a while.” 

A duffle bag was slung over Rooney’s shoulder. He lifted a hand to hitch it higher, the strap failing the find purchase on the slick material of his full body hazard suit. Rooney bobbed his masked head and rattled out a rasped, “Long enough, Nines.” 

That was certainly true. Nines blinked slowly and assessed his informant carefully. One always had to be careful with one of his kind. There was no Cult left to give much meaning to the name of Rooney’s bloodline. Most just called them daywalkers. Others, namely the ones less concerned with politeness or pity, just called them freaks. Nines wasn’t in the habit of disparaging others when he was all too used to being disparaged himself, but when it came to the Cult of Poveglia, Nines’s tolerance for kindness only extended so far. 

Tonight that distance extended approximately ten feet. Any closer and he’d no doubt begin to feel the sickly effects of Rooney’s poisoned, discolored flesh seeping through the gaps in his gas mask and suit. It wouldn’t do much to the likes of Nines beyond make him feel a bit queasy, but if some blundering human ambled through, well… they wouldn’t be so lucky. 

Nines gave a subtle shiver at the thought of dealing with that on top of everything else on his plate. No, he had quite enough going on as it was. Not many were willing to work with folks like Rooney. Their existence wasn’t… distasteful, per se, but it was certainly out of vogue in this day and age. They were better left alone in their enclaves, alone with their experiments and obsessions and away from any and all who might contract a disease vastly outdated for the likes of modernity. He’d make this quick. Rooney was sure to appreciate that. He always disliked being out at night. Cut into his sleep, he’d say. The day was for work, at least in his particular case.

Rooney shuffled and shifted loudly in his thick plastic wrappings. Thankfully enough those of his bloodline were happier that way as well, as evidenced by the impatience Rooney showed now. 

Nines cleared his throat a little. Might as well get on with it. Rooney clearly wanted to be asleep. 

“Do you have what I asked for?” he began, settling his arms over his chest to cover the conspicuous loosely laced opening that stretched from his collarbones to navel. Rooney wouldn’t judge him; he doubted the daywalker even noticed. 

Rooney cocked his masked head slowly, another rattling breath issuing forth that slowly wrapped itself around the words, “I tried. It’s hard. Bodies are old, touched by those… chemicals.” 

Nines bit at his lip. “You put them back once you were done, right?” Digging up the deceased was distasteful enough without taking the risk to allow a Cultist of all people to fiddle around with the remains.  _ Beyond the scope of the autopsy _ , he amended, knowing that it was a necessary evil. Still, he didn’t like how Rooney lingered over the word  _ chemicals.  _

The silence that followed turned that dislike into outright frustration. Rooney stared at him placidly through the shiny glass eye lenses of his mask, saying nothing while saying everything. Nines bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. He needed that information. One of the worst parts of the job was this: standing up for a moral imperative that many—if not all—didn’t share, or getting results. Nines knew what was more important. That didn’t mean he had to like it. 

“Do you have the information I asked for?” he pressed on, hating how Rooney cocked his head and visibly relaxed once he realized Nines hadn’t come to take away his corpses. His  _ test subjects. _

Another crackling croak. “Yes,” the daywalker said, shifting down to root through the tattered, stained bag at his feet. “In… here. Hard job. Results inconclusive but interesting. Fascinating, really—”

“Sure, if you like jagged flesh wounds and the scent of incompetence,” a voice interjected behind him. “If you wanted information, Nines, I think you went to the wrong person.”

Nines didn’t jump, but it was a close thing. He whipped around, though, and bared his teeth as a laugh rose up, jocular and mean. The scent of cheap jasmine and stale blood greeted him like an unwelcome wind. Oh, great.  _ Her. _

“Lucretia,” he said with visible pain. Papers littered the ground now; Rooney hadn’t handled the surprise very well. The duffle had gone flying, its contents spilling out onto the grimy street in a wave of off-white paper. Nines pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and sighed. “I don’t recall contacting you about this.” A part of him wanted to ask how she’d even heard he’d be out here tonight, but another part of him, the logical side, knew better than to ask stupid questions. Of course she knew. The Nicciave always knew. 

The woman, Lucretia, took a step closer to Nines. She tried to play it off as casual, but anyone could see how discomforted she was to be standing so close to a Cultist. She rested her hands on her hips, jet black curls bouncing against her shoulders. “A mistake on your part, I’m sure,” she murmured. Nines struggled not to fidget as she took evident glee in looking him up and down. 

“It wasn’t. Leave.”

Her head rolled on her shoulder. She pressed her back to the wall of the alley and never let her eyes leave Nines’s body. He returned the stare evenly. She hadn’t changed much since the last time they’d stumbled upon one another— or in Lucretia’s case, been pursued by him under suspicion of supplying classified information to groups better left out of the loop. He hadn’t been able to pin anything on her then, but not for lack of trying. The Nicciave were always slippery like that. Dealing in secrets, pulling any string they could get their hands on in hopes of seeing what would unravel on the other end. 

Lucretia wore a low cut halter top with black jeans, her cropped gray wash jacket more of an afterthought than anything that would logically keep her warm if she were to come across a human concerned about her being out and about in the wintry weather descending on the city. Nines felt something ripple in the black behind his eyes. Images of that cop flickered through like a slideshow. Concern, annoyance, that coat… Nines shook his head the way a horse might to rid itself of a fly. Lucretia blinked at him. Her lips were curled into a playful grin. 

“Is there a particular reason you’re here?” Nines asked, biting the bullet since he could tell she wouldn’t answer without being asked. Her compulsion was prodding at him, poking at his head. He glared at her until she stopped, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from laughing at him for trying. 

“Just wanted to see my good friend Rooney.” A lie. The Nicciave hated the Cultists. She was probably wanting to get the information Rooney had gathered for him. “And you too, of course,” she added. “When the infamous Internal Affairs lapdog of the Enforcers begins moving about, it draws…” She let her eyes rove over his outfit once more, the pink slip of her tongue peeking out to wet her lips. “Attention.” 

Part of Nines wanted to cover himself with his arms again. To explain he was dressed like this to blend in with the victims. But… she’d see right through that. She’d see how defensive he was, and it’d just give her more ammunition for whatever scheme she was concocting. He straightened his spine and narrowed his eyes. 

Her hands came up to placate. Her smile stayed firmly in place. Lucretia was odd in that sense, different from other Nicciave. Be it from her youth or the generation of her birth, she lacked the politician smile that many of her elders wore so well. That wasn’t to say that she wasn’t just as slimy, calculating, or ambitious as they were; she was. In spades, she was. It just painted her in an odd light. To be quite honest, it made Nines want to pull back his fist and punch out her grinning white teeth. 

“Scary, scary,” she singsonged, lacing her fingers behind her head. “There’s a murderer on the loose and somehow you manage to be the scariest thing on these streets. How  _ do  _ you do it? I’d think— Hey, woah!” she grunted, nearly stumbling as Rooney yanked a fallen paper out from under her heeled boot. She staggered back in a rush, desperate to put some distance between herself and the walking plague-bearer scuttling along the ground. 

“Almost done,” Rooney assured Nines, his eye lenses glinting oddly in the wane light filtering off the street. 

“A little warning next time,” Lucretia hissed, her facade dropping for the barest hint of a moment. 

“You could just leave,” Nines suggested. In fact, he nearly insisted. “Unless you’ve information in regards to the murders, I really don’t think you need to be here.” 

Lucretia sniffed in displeasure. “I’ve information on everything,  _ Enforcer.  _ But like I said before, I hardly came here for that. Say, how’s that brother of yours?” she asked next, attention ostensibly occupied by the files Rooney was gathering off to the side. Pale blue eyes flicked towards Nines like an afterthought. “Still suckling at the vein of luxury? Still basking in the lap of that crackpot Kamski?”

The question had him tripping for a moment. But just a moment. “I don’t see how any of that relates to the murders,” Nines bit out. He was proud of himself for keeping his tone even. Internally, he was a mess of sharp, painful edges. Fragile. Sometimes, like this time, he didn’t even need to hear Connor’s name to feel it. That probably meant something. Nines wasn’t in any mood to delve deeper to find out what. 

Lucretia rolled her shoulders easily, tossing up her hands in a placating display he didn’t buy for even an instant. “Oh, I never suggested it did. But one can’t be in a business like mine and not care about the minutiae of those far above.” She knelt down and snatched a stray paper from the ground. Nines didn’t let her look at it long before tearing it from her hand. So, she really had come here to snoop and pick at his leads like the scavenger she was. She glowered for a moment as she stood back up. “You’re close with your brother, no? Or, I suppose you were before all  _ this—”  _ she gestured vaguely at Nines, then up at her own sharp, pointed teeth, “happened.” 

This was one of the reasons why he hated relying on informants. They got the job done, sure, but the task of it all was something Nines would rather let rot in the gutter. He swallowed down the knee jerk urge to react visibly. He focused his attention on Rooney as he fiddled with the multitude of papers littering the area. Some sported stains and splotches in unfortunately organic looking colors. Lucretia, never one to let a silence linger for long, took his lack of reaction as permission—or perhaps just incentive—to keep going. 

“You know, there’s still plenty of talk about it all,” she pressed, pressed like a cruel child’s fingers into the bruises on another’s limbs. To add insult to injury, she brought her nails up, assessing her cuticles with faux intent. “It’s been awhile since we’ve had any sort of scandal on that level. Poaching is such a  _ dreadful  _ crime, but to think of poaching from the Luminaries? Why, you may not have gotten your princely ever after, but you’ve certainly managed to live in infamy regardless, haven’t you?”

“I’d hardly call what I do now  _ living in infamy,”  _ he murmured. “Rooney, how much longer will this take?”

“Oh, let the poor creature be. It’s not often he’s up this late.”

The eye roll was unavoidable. Nines hissed out a sigh and glared at Lucretia. She just smiled and covered her lips with the tips of her fingers. An,  _ oh, did I make you mad?  _ sort of pose. It asked a question Nines didn’t really need to answer. Verbally, at least. He’d already done so subconsciously a thousand times over. 

“All I’m saying, Nines, is that I feel for you,” she said after a loaded pause. Her sharp-nailed fingers curled down, forming a loose fist that she tucked under her pointed chin. “Such an unlucky soul you are. It’s impossible not to feel some measure of pity for it all.” Rooney came back over and held out the files to Nines. She watched him reach for them. “Which is why I’m endlessly curious about that brother of yours. One would think an unlucky thing like you would lean a little on such a  _ fortunate  _ soul, and yet I’ve heard you nary give him the time of night anymore—”

Nines took the files in a harsh grip. The papers protested it weakly. Their crackles and crinkles weren’t as satisfying as bone might have been in his hand. He inhaled an unneeded breath and let it out slowly. The Nicciave were weak, he reminded himself. Weak, scarce, and useful. Focusing on the latter got harder and harder with every interaction he had with Lucretia and her ilk. There was a reason their clan had all but been eradicated in the years following the Fall. Acting as she did didn’t give her much argument to offer for her protection. 

“I think it would be prudent of you,” he said through clenched teeth, “to put your attention towards finding the killer. Not digging in my personal affairs.” 

Lucretia leaned against the grimy wall, her smile not falling an inch. That was what Nines hated most about her, probing, supercilious questions aside. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Her pre-cognizance would tell her otherwise. 

She raised a sharply angled brow. “Me? Find the killer? That’s your job, isn’t it,  _ Enforcer?” _

On the other hand, no one would miss her if he did. Nines’s hand tightened dangerously, threatening to rip the papers. Lucretia stood a little taller all of a sudden. Her smile dripped down her face like melted wax, coagulating into an anxious sort of frown. There was silence. Tense silence. 

Rooney let out a sound somewhere between a croak and a rattle. Through the scuffed mouthpiece of the mask, Nines assumed it was meant to function as a cough. A poor attempt, but it got the job done. Nines’s hackles lowered and Lucretia slowly relaxed back into her insouciant slouch. 

“If that’s all you’ll be requiring?” Rooney echoed brokenly, cocking his head like a particularly intent scavenger assessing the carrion below. 

It wasn’t. Nines had a plethora of questions yet to ask, but with Lucretia here and no doubt in no mood to leave, he figured he probably wouldn’t be getting them now. He shuffled the papers in his hand and folded them in half instead. “It is, thank you.” He could always just contact Rooney again if it really came down to it. 

Rooney bobbed his head and zipped up his duffle bag. “Good.” He hitched the strap over his shoulder, bowed his head, and practically bolted from the alley. Nines only managed to watch him for a second or two before he disappeared completely into the night. Couldn’t blame him for the speedy departure. Nines was debating following suite up until Lucretia saw fit to remind him of her presence once more. 

She did as such with a low whistle. It grated on Nines’s nerves like nails against a chalkboard. Woodenly he turned to look at her. She smiled brightly at him, the sharp peaks of her fangs just visible past her painted lips. 

“Just us now,” she said in a low, intimate voice. It put Nines on guard in an instant. “What to do now? How about a chat?”

Nines took a step towards the mouth of the alley. Her eyes were trying valiantly to keep on his face, but he didn’t miss how they drifted lower, settling on his chest first and then on the stack of papers tucked under his arm. “No,” Nines answered, dragging her attention back to his face where he felt it safest to be. “I don’t need anything from you. If that changes—”

She took a step closer to him, matching his retreat. There was a heaviness to her gaze now. She was searching for something, searching hard. Another glance at the pages. One of the top pages was frontside out. Nines quickly moved to cover it. Lucretia smiled. 

“You know how to get ahold of me,” she finished for him, brushing past him with a flood of jasmine and blood following in her wake. “Just keep your wits about you,  _ Enforcer.  _ There’s a killer on the loose.” 

The papers crinkled as Nines held them tighter. He watched her leave, disappearing into the darkness like Rooney had before. She knew something. Would she chase after Rooney, demand the information he now held in his arms? No… She probably already knew. Nines bit down on the inside of his cheek, eyes pricking as a wash of old blood coated his tongue. Whatever. The Nicciave were like that. There was even a chance she knew nothing and was just fronting otherwise. All they were good for was information these days. They had to keep up the illusion of use lest they be rendered obsolete. 

“Annoying,” he heard himself mutter. Nines blinked away the instinct itching at his teeth to go after her, to hunt and track the scent of jasmine still lingering in the alley. He had what he came here to get. That was the important thing.

The alley didn’t make a good office. Nines pushed away from the wall and exited onto the street, lifting the pages to begin scanning the contents. He had been right to think the stains organic; almost instantly he was met with the reeking, fetid stink of rotten blood, human fat, and the nose-stinging whiff of preservatives normally found in embalmed corpses. Rooney had made a mess of his autopsy. Nines winced and read faster. 

The shuffling of papers was louder than his footsteps. Nines paused beneath a wane street light, mouth tight, jaw locked. The wounds on the neck were consistent with the marks found on the bodies prior. Jagged, messy, proof of incisors not quite shaped to the task but situated in a jaw strong enough to have a go at it anyway. Nines had suspected a fledgling was at work. This just verified it further. Someone must have sired one illegally. Either they were letting their creation loose on unsuspecting prostitutes or there was a fledgling without a sire to guide them, simply striking out blindly, rogue. 

Something tight and heavy settled in the pit of Nines’s stomach at the thought of the latter. He lowered the pages and tore them carefully into pieces, depositing the unreadable scraps in a few different trash cans along the road. He didn’t need them anymore; he’d remember the findings perfectly without them. 

A fledgling. That… complicated matters. Even if the fledgling were operating out of fear and hunger, it simply meant there were two culprits now. The onus of the responsibility rested on the sire for something like that happening. A sire… Nines bit down harder on his cheek. A sire was supposed to guide, to nurture, to teach. It was bad enough if a sire went about it all illegally to begin with, but failing to even do the modicum of education? That made it so much worse for all involved. A fledgling couldn’t hunt on its own easily. The fangs that assisted in such things took time to form, at least a couple of decades. Nines himself still struggled to do much with his own fangs and he’d been as such for—

A pair of headlights turned onto the street, pulling Nines from his darkening thoughts. He swore internally and slipped off the street before the beams of light could find him, moving between buildings and decrepit houses until he was heading in the direction of the last crime scene. If it were in fact a fledgling, the important thing to do was figure out whether or not a sire was involved. That would help narrow down suspects. He could lean on some people, put out feelers to see if there had been any new apprehensions in regards to illegal fledgling creation. It shouldn’t be too hard to discover if another person had been present at the woman’s death. The human police wouldn’t know the difference, but Nines would. He could figure it out. 

His thoughts circled the issue like vultures riding warm updrafts. They spiralled around the rotting, festering problem, and Nines moved quickly to get where he needed to go if only to spare himself the mounting headache. The school opened up to him much the way it had the last time he’d wandered through its gates, the scent of new death thick in the air and the bright yellow of crime scene tape crinkling softly in the early winter breeze. Nines stepped over the ribbons of tape, not missing the stink one bit. It was an oppressive sort of stench. Being dead himself hadn’t made it easier to bear, and he had a feeling exposure wasn’t the way to get used to it. Nines glanced around the empty parking lot and then up at the tall facade looming just ahead. Death was out of place in a setting like this. Night couldn’t erase how mundane a schoolyard felt. Mundane and safe. Though the yellow tape said otherwise. 

The body had been found behind the school in some far off corner of the playground. The victim, a prostitute like the rest, had reportedly been spotted working a few blocks away. At least, that’s what the papers had said. The human police were hard at work on their own investigation. Nines wasn’t sure how much to trust what they came up with; after all, they hardly knew the true nature of the killer. 

He carefully navigated another swatch of tape as he moved into the playground. Lonely swings hung from bars painted a chipped, weather worn blue. A slide emerged from the earth like a silent sentinel, bracketed by the charming sight of those rideable animals mounted on spring bases. A duck and a lion. Nines felt the makings of a smile tug at the corner of his lip. He moved past them and couldn’t resist trailing his fingers along the smooth head of the duck. Its paint was chipped, but the whimsy of it still broke through the dinge. Cute. Sadly not what he’d come here for, though. 

On some level a killer was still a killer no matter what or who it was. It was something to help direct Nines’s investigation, those police reports in the daily papers. He curled his hand into a fist and kept on moving, chin high and eyes locked on the final patch of yellow tape off in the far corner of the playground. The humans were baffled of course, spiralling for answers when they weren’t even asking the proper questions. Nines stepped over the tape and knelt down on the cold blacktop. The scene had been cleared of the body. Obviously, else Rooney’s autopsy would have been far easier than it had been, but the physical evidence of the dump still remained. At least, they remained for someone like Nines. If he inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, he could make out the scent of sweat, the scent of fear. It had bled into the blacktop, rained down upon it in the blood drops that speckled the rough pavement. She hadn’t just been dumped here; she’d died here too. 

That was something the human papers kept getting wrong. They assumed from the lack of blood and the drained nature of the corpses that they had died somewhere else. Been  _ drained  _ somewhere else. Nines opened his eyes and slowly worked around the crime scene on his knees, inhaling deeply, scratching flecks and flakes of dried blood free with his nails to lick them carefully. It’d be a boon if he managed to taste something other than fear-drenched human blood. The chances of a victim landing a deep enough scratch or wound to make a vampire bleed were scarce, but they’d make Nines’s job so much easier. So much could be told from the blood. Everyone’s tasted unique. Feelings, diet, even the clan if the sample was large enough…

He had worked his way around the marked off space within thirty or so minutes. The world around him was silent but for the occasional rusty squeaks of the swing chains swaying in the light breeze. In that time he discovered a few samples of hair the CSI team must have missed, several paper sticks from what he assumed were tossed lollipops, and… this. Nines came to a stop nearly ten feet from the main crime scene, knees caked in dirt as he paused over a suspiciously dark stain that had managed to blend with the dark, cracked earth upon which it resided. It smelled like blood. He had a feeling the humans wouldn’t have noticed it. They were too focused on the body, not really thinking much about the rest when they already assumed the crime itself had occurred somewhere else. 

Pinching a bit of the dirt between his fingers, Nines could tell just by touch that the blood had coagulated partially before being deposited here. It was thick, a bit sludgy. It was below freezing outside, and the substance turned into a mud-like mess after just a few seconds of being in Nines’s slightly warmer hand. 

Nines scented it again, then stuck out his tongue only to immediately wrinkle his nose and spit. He stared at the splotch of blood, and then at the mess on his fingers. It was… ‘rancid’ might be a strong word for it, but that was the closest he could come to describing it. Almost acidic, like battery acid or the particularly bad coffee he’d had back when he was human and attending college. In fact, it really echoed the latter. Nines sucked on his tongue, licked at his fingers, and spat again. He’d hated coffee from those cheap machines. It always tasted like vomit. 

His eyes widened a little. He looked down at the spilled blood and then glanced at the spot where the body had been. The distance didn’t add up. This wasn’t blood spatter or the location where the attack occurred. 

He rubbed the tips of his fingers together, smelling them critically. He had a very strong feeling that this blood had been purged. He was tasting stomach acid in it, and it coated his tongue thickly as he swallowed it down. Had there been other puddles like this at the other crime scenes? He needed to check the notes— Fuck, he didn’t have those notes, did he? He was the only one investigating this damn case. The humans clearly had missed this in their investigation. It was safe to assume they’d miss it everywhere else too. If he hadn’t noticed it before, then that meant no one had. 

Nines rose to his feet with a frustrated huff, curling his hands into fists as he glared down at the puddle. Purged blood was a very important detail to miss. It meant a few things, opened a few new avenues of investigation. A vampire didn’t purge easily, and certainly for no reason. Did that mean the sire had been here? Could it have possibly forced its fledgling to purge as a punishment? Perhaps the sire had been the one to purge… Disgusted by what its fledgling had done, maybe. Maybe. Not many vampires held such compunctions, though. 

In the back of his mind he recalled that there had been a group a few years back that had done… not something too close to this, but close enough. Rogue, dissatisfied vampires of various clans, hunting in the night, attacking those unfortunate enough to be on the streets after dark. The Enforcers had put an end to them quickly, throwing up some scapegoat and manufacturing evidence to mislead the human police. He supposed it could be possible that some of that faction remained. It’d explain how frequent the feedings were. No single vampire needed to drain a body every night to stay moving. The purging… could be some sort of hazing ritual. He’d heard of stranger ceremonies taking place even in the more illustrious houses of the upper clans. 

Options. There were a lot of them when he chose to look at things like that. 

He lifted his head slowly, exhaling even slower. The motions of breathing had been lost to him for awhile now, but he couldn’t help but still go through them anyway for the comfort they brought him. The cool air stung a little. He lifted his head and glanced around the playground. It had rained since the murder before this one. Was it worth going back to the other crime scenes anyway on the off chance something had survived? There’d be no way to build a profile on the killer without knowing. Whether it was a one-off, a pattern… 

He started walking without making a decision. There was an energy building up in his limbs urging him to move, to go, to do  _ something  _ to make up for the lapse in judgement not combing over those past areas had been. It would probably yield nothing but a headache to go back. That was fine. He had nothing else to do until daybreak anyway. The pain would be good incentive never to cut corners again. 

The whisper of a hiss left his lips at the thought. Somewhere far off a car door slammed. Nines took another look around the empty playground and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. They didn’t go far; the pants were too tight. He hunched his shoulders and made for the rear gate. He’d jump it and head over to the other crime scenes, cutting through the back loading dock and then out past the soccer fields. He had perhaps four more hours until he needed to be in his haven. The pinprick of his fang dug into his lower lip. It’d be cutting it close. Somehow he’d manage. 

It was better this way, he rationalized. Cutting it close. It was always better than sitting alone in that rundown apartment, waiting for the Sleep to come. He was being productive like this, doing some semblance of good for someone out there who cared. Nines kicked a little at the pebbles speckled along the blacktop. A hopscotch board was traced out in thick white paint beneath his feet. Last he’d heard the school had been closed for the week while the police did their investigation. 

He let another soft sigh escape him. The loading dock was up ahead. Good. He wanted away from here. There was something about an empty, dark schoolyard that put him on edge. Odd since he’d never attended a public school like this, but that didn’t alleviate it. He stood a little taller and glanced around, pressing himself into the shadows cast off the building above. It was rather disconcerting, this sudden unease. Almost as if there were eyes watching him. But, that was impossible. It was nearing four a.m. Not even the night custodians would be on the premises this late. 

He had just made it to the alley of the loading dock when the wind changed. Nines froze in place, suddenly scenting the air as it drifted past his nose. His eyes widened. He could feel the prickle of his pupils dilating. Blood tinged the air crimson. No… burgundy. Nearly brown. Old blood. Stale. 

Another vampire. The killer? The chances— Nines calculated them quickly. 

Saliva filled his mouth. They were high. 

Nines’s teeth itched in his gums. The swings at his back creaked lightly in the wind. He lifted himself onto his toes and stalked forward, gravitating towards the pools of dark shadow cast off the tall building at his side. It was ahead of him. He could sense it. Around the corner, maybe. The roof otherwise. Nines pressed himself against the rough brick and moved slowly, silently, edging closer. Eyes were on him, searching for him. It wouldn’t see him. He was the night. His body was shadow. There would be no running from him now. 

He had their scent. That was all a hunter like him needed. 

A warning growl. Something low. Guttural. Rabid? No. It had intelligence. He could sense it. Those eyes were calculating. Its aura, though, was weak. 

Nines stopped breathing. He didn’t need it now. His pupils dilated further. He drew back his lips from his teeth and waited. 

One.

Two. 

Three seconds. 

The scuff of a boot. The ripple of fabric in wind. Nines jolted from his spot like a spring and raked his fingers through the dark night air, an animalistic snarl on his tongue that echoed dully through the empty playground. It was there. A flash of color. The red of bloodshot eyes. Dark clothes. Short. It was fast— It darted down from its hiding spot on the eave of a doorway and ran like a blur for the fence around the corner. Nines took off after it, powerful legs pumping beneath him, carrying him forward, just another motion blur the cameras wouldn’t catch. His prey turned the corner. It disappeared from sight. 

Not for long. He had its scent. He  _ had  _ it. 

A clatter greeted him when he turned the corner. A screech, a shout, the piercing, blinding glare of a light in Nines’s dilated eyes. Nines stumbled. He tossed up his hands to shield his screaming eyes and barely caught the, “What the  _ fuck  _ is going on?” coming from behind the light. Nines fought to hide his fangs, to calm himself down. The scent was gone. It got away. There was a human here now. 

His options were limited now. Kill and run? Just run? He blinked furiously and lifted his hand to cover the burning light aimed directly at him. 

“Police! Put your hands up!” 

Nines grimaced and didn’t move. He kept his hands in front of his face. His options were limited. Growing more limited every second. “What seems to be the problem, officer?” he asked, voice rough and grated from the hunt. He needed that light to go. He was as good as blind as he was now. If the murderer chose to attack now...

“Trespassing is a crime, dipshit,” that voice countered just as roughly. Nines’s ears perked at the sound. Familiar… “The hell are you doing out here?  What the fuck was that thing?” The cocking of a gun rang out in the darkness. “Get your hands behind your head. I’ll fucking shoot if you try something.”

A bullet wound was not the way Nines wanted to end his evening. He could take it if he had to. This man was police. He’d aim at the shoulder first, then the chest. Nines could take those. So long as it wasn’t to the head he could be over there in a second, maybe two. He lowered his hands slowly. He needed to see though. When the chance came to snap this human’s neck, he needed to take it. He needed to—

The light lowered. Nines didn’t bother finishing his thought; he moved instead. 

He made it all of a step. Just once measly step before the man behind the flashlight grunted out, “Nines?! What the  _ fuck  _ is wrong with your face?”

Nines froze in place, hands locked behind his head. He knew that voice. He knew that face. He knew this cop. 

And somehow this cop had witnessed  _ everything.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill have the next chapter out after Nov. 8th! leave a comment if you liked it and get ready for next chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

The beam of the flashlight cut through the darkness, illuminating a figure Gavin was struggling to rationalize seeing when it sported a mouthful of fangs and a chest so big that it threatened to spill out of the scanty little shirt covering it. 

“Nines?!” he spat, dropping the flashlight an inch, but not the gun. “What the  _ fuck  _ is wrong with your face?”

Nines stiffened and quickly tried to turn his face out of the light. The wicked curve of his fangs glistened white in the glare of the flashlight beam, and-- Oh, fucking hell. His eyes too. His eyes didn’t look blue anymore, but a soulless kind of black ringed by a thin sliver of blue. Gavin sucked in a cold, bracing lungful of air. His hand shook a little, the gun suddenly intensely heavy. 

“Was that you I saw before?” he whispered, dreading to know for sure. He’d seen something… some… crouched shape, those burning eyes that stopped him in his tracks before he could chase it over the fence it had been perched on. He’d told himself it was just a trick of the light, some shadows playing tricks on him, but now… “What… What  _ are  _ you?”

Nines was as still as a statue. So still, so motionless, and it was only then that Gavin realized why that was so unsettling. His own breathing had grown ragged over the course of this interaction. Thick clouds of condensation kept puffing free from his lips in measured bursts. It was cold out tonight. Viciously cold, but Nines wore no coat. He… He wasn’t breathing. Or if he was, it didn’t make any fog. 

Jesus Christ. 

Gavin stumbled back a step or two when Nines finally lifted his head. His eyes were blue once more, his teeth hidden behind his pale lips. A slow, catlike blink, and then Gavin felt his heart seize in his chest as a wave of that same sickly weight rolled over him. 

“Put down the gun, officer,” Nines said in a silken, sweet voice. He cocked his head to the side and lowered his hands. “I won’t hurt you.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” It was hard to speak. His hand was shaking visibly now, the gun so, so heavy. Gavin bared his teeth and grimaced. He should be shooting. A warning shot at least. That was protocol. Nines took a step closer and Gavin felt locked in place. Those blue eyes refused to leave his own. So heavy. So… heavy. 

Nines took another step, then another. He lifted a pale, graceful hand and put it on top of Gavin’s gun. “Back in your holster,” the man ordered quietly. He was so close now. No warmth came off his body. Gavin couldn’t look away. 

“Fuck you,” Gavin spat through his teeth. His hands shook so much. He held tighter to his gun. The cold metal bit into his palms. The pain was grounding. It helped. Not enough to get the gun back in the air, to point it or fire it or do anything at all with it, but he was trying. He was trying his damnedest--

“Put it in your holster,” the voice practically hissed, Nines grabbing Gavin beneath the chin to force their eyes to meet. Despite the tone he held, Nines’s expression hadn’t changed. His blue eyes were so… 

The pressure behind Gavin’s eyes eased the second he complied. The gun slipped into his holster with a soft click, locking into place. It was as if he’d been plagued by a headache and it had finally faded. Gavin sagged with relief. He let his hands hang limply at his sides. He shouldn’t have resisted for that long. Everything was fine now. There was nothing to worry about. 

Nines blinked slowly and Gavin looked at him calmly, taking in the perfect planes of his face. God, he was so gorgeous. Why had he wanted to hurt this? Nines was… He was fine. Good. It felt safe like this, that big, cold hand still wrapped around his throat. With anyone else Gavin might have worried, fought, but he knew better. Those eyes would never hurt him. Nines had said as much already. He was--

“What are you doing here, officer?” 

The question startled Gavin from his staring. The hand around his neck loosened, slipping down to wrap around his shoulder. He dropped his eyes lower and was met with the thick line of Nines’s neck, his sharp collar bones, the teasing, laced-up line of his shirt that cut from his nape to navel. The shiny leather glistened almost wetly in the wane moonlight. Jesus fucking Christ. 

“Officer Reed?”

Fuck. 

“How do you know my name?” he mumbled, suddenly not so cold anymore. 

Nines stared at him curiously. There was something so… animalistic about his mannerisms. The sharpness of his gaze, the slow, lingering blinks. It was all really predatory. Still, Gavin wasn’t afraid. That heavy hand on his shoulder was as cold as a block of ice, but the weight in his mind smothered the fear and worry before it could blanket him. 

“It’s on your uniform,” Nines said plainly. Another blink. “What are you doing here, Officer Reed? How did you find me?”

Gavin wanted to laugh. He also wanted to faceplant himself in the cleavage in front of him. “Wasn’t looking for you,” he settled on saying. It was safer just to talk. If he fell forward he didn’t have much hope he’d be able to get back up again. “You have my coat. You took my fucking coat and you aren’t even wearing it.”

Nines stared at him hard. He broke it to look around the area, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared as if scenting the air for something in particular. His body was tense, statue-like again. “We shouldn’t be here,” he murmured quietly, and Gavin wheezed out a laugh. 

“That’s what I was fuckin’ saying,” he mumbled, giving Nines a hard look that didn’t feel all that hard when it landed. Everything seemed like it had been coated in oil, every act Gavin tried to perform sliding off Nines’s back like water off a duck’s back. He didn’t feel as if he were in control. What a thought, too. He had the fucking gun and he felt less in control than the guy wearing a skimpy little club slut top and pants so tight they looked painted on. 

Gavin cleared his throat and dragged his eyes back up. If he kept staring, he’d probably just get himself into trouble. “You’re trespassing. Trespassing with your teeth out like some kind of monster.” And speaking of monsters, what the hell was that thing he saw before? He opened his mouth to ask, but didn’t get the chance. Nines’s expression changed too quickly for Gavin to have any defense. His features softened, his eyes going dark and sweet. A gentle smile quirked his full lips. 

“I have your coat still, don’t I, Officer Reed?” he asked, catching Gavin off guard. The hand on his shoulder loosened, more of a caress than a grip now. “How about I give it back to you?”

He was clearly changing the subject. It was… It was obvious, wasn’t it? That Nines was hiding something, trying to distract him. Gavin furrowed his brow and tried to take a step back, but that hand tightened in an instant. Nines’s eyes were so blue. So damn blue. 

Nines leaned closer, putting his lips to Gavin’s ear. “I can give it to you, Officer Reed,” his voice implored, promised. The breath that tickled Gavin’s skin was as cold as the winter night around them. “I have it nearby. It’s at my house. Will you take me home, officer? I want you to come home with me.”

Gavin let out a shaking, shuddering breath. “Are you… serious?” he croaked, wishing he could break the grip and look at Nines properly. Despite the freezing temperature, his body didn’t feel that cold. In fact, he burned. He  _ burned  _ from head to toe at the thought of all Nines’s honeyed voice held in its rich depths. 

“Of course,” Nines answered, already tugging him towards the street. Gavin’s body moved easily beneath his hand. He was a puppet on a string, susceptible to even the lightest of touches. “Take me home. I want to thank you for lending me your coat. It was so kind of you.”

“It was… nothing,” Gavin blustered. He tried to look behind them, but couldn’t. He tried to look at Nines, but only managed to for a few seconds before he almost tripped over his own feet. He felt… drunk, almost. Like his willpower and his body were operating on difference frequencies that couldn’t quite be reconciled. It made the walk back to the car tense. Gavin’s body moved without much prompting, the hand on his shoulder guiding him forward even though he was technically leading the way. Nines took special care to look him in the eye every few minutes, adding another layer of fog to Gavin’s already swimming head. He stumbled over the last curb and caught himself on the hood of the squad car, fishing for the keys in his pocket with hands so numb he could barely feel the cold kiss of the ring of metal in his pocket. 

Another hand made of ice slipped into his pocket alongside his own when he didn’t move fast enough. Gavin grunted and stumbled again. Nines didn’t let him go far. He jerked Gavin back onto his feet and pressed the key to his palm. “Here,” he said in that cool, gorgeous voice. “Drive me home, officer. You want to take me home, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Gavin wheezed, practically shoving the key into the door lock in his fervor to unlock it and get Nines inside. It went against protocol, but he opened the passenger side door for the beautiful escort, letting him in instead of telling him to sit in the back behind the metal cage. Gavin dragged himself into the driver’s side and fumbled for his seatbelt. He turned on the ignition and the heaters blasted him with rapidly warming air. 

His thermos of coffee was still in the cupholder by his elbow. He’d drained half of it patrolling around before he felt the urge to go hunting down the last crime scene. A flicker of regret tickled the back of his neck. He could have been behind his desk right now. 

Instead he was going back to Nines’s place. His palms were sweaty when he put them on the steering wheel and pulled away from the curb. 

“Follow this street, then turn right onto Heddon.” Nines was looking around the car now, picking up thick files Gavin had brought with him to peruse during his downtime. Not strictly permitted, but no one had to know. 

The instructions came intermittently. Papers turned and crinkled off to the side. The drive there blurred. Gavin blinked and entire city blocks were behind them, lost in the haze filling Gavin’s head. He wasn’t sure how long it took to get to Nines’s place. He wasn’t even sure they really were driving or moving at all. He’d look beside him to see if Nines really was there and be met with those crystal blue eyes. He’d look back forward and find he’d traveled another mile. 

“What case are these files for?” Nines asked at one point, closing the folder and reaching for the next. 

Gavin swallowed and tried to stay silent. It only took a few minutes for the pressure to grow stronger than his willpower. “Assaults and solicitations,” he grunted, hands tight around the wheel. The pressure eased. He sighed in relief. 

“Why?”

He didn’t bother fighting this time. “Trying to find motive for the deaths,” he said tersely, turning another corner when Nines’s hand rose to point at the next street. They had entered the bad side of town a good ten minutes ago. “Seeing if there were patterns behind the victims’ movements. Just trying to figure out where they were grabbed from. Shit like that.”

A pause. Gavin chanced a glance at Nines. The fog didn’t hit him when he did. Nines’s brow was furrowed. “You don’t think the bodies were dropped off at the crime scene?” Pale, slender fingers drummed on the smooth manilla folder. 

He shook his head no. Nines gave a soft sound and then turned away, pressing his temple to the glass window. 

“Here. Stop here.”

Gavin’s foot shifted to the break without any conscious effort on his part. He put the car into park, then turned off the ignition. He looked towards Nines--silent, pensive Nines. The man made no move to get up or out, at least not for a few minutes. Gavin blinked and shifted, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. His heart was hammering in his chest. Should he say something? Should he ask if they were doing this? But saying it would make it real. Fuck. 

“I can hear your anxiety.”

Gavin blinked and jerked his head towards Nines. “What?”

A sigh. “Nothing.” Nines came to life as he exited the car, his ass criminal in those tight, inky pants of his. Gavin’s mouth was as dry as a bone. His breath came loudly in the silence of the now empty car. Was he really going to do this? Was he really going to fuck a prostitute he’d caught trespassing at an active crime scene?

There came a rap on the glass of the window behind him. Gavin turned towards it and saw Nines standing at the driver’s side door, watching him through the glass. Gavin swallowed and unbuckled his seatbelt. Thinking hadn’t been a factor for awhile now. 

He opened the door of the car and heard Nines’s voice as clear as ice say, “Leave your gun in the car, please.”

Another part of his psyche screamed itself hoarse at Gavin when all he did was listen. 

“Good,” Nines sighed, holding out a hand to pull Gavin from the car. The door closed behind him with a loud click. Gavin fumbled to lock it, but Nines didn’t bother letting him. He just tugged him forward, towards a tall, shambling tennant building that looked as rundown as the rest of this side of town, but without any street lights around to pretend it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. 

“You really live here?” Gavin asked as Nines lead him up a set of creaking, loose stairs. If it weren’t for the slim, cold fingers wrapped around his wrist, Gavin had a feeling he might have bolted. He tried to focus on the body in front of him and not on the sounds of shouting coming through the thin walls they passed, or on the way the wind and cold found its way inside through gaps in the wood that couldn’t even pretend to still be up to safety code. But God, this was a shithole. How a guy this hot put up with a place like this… 

They reached the landing before Nines bothered responding, and even when they were standing up there and heading towards a far door that boasted the faded, dingy number 509 on it, Nines still stayed silent. He pulled Gavin behind him and fiddled with the door out of view, and then it was open, no key at work and certainly no sign of a deadbolt to protect the rooms within. 

Gavin had just about resigned himself to being ignored when Nines let go of his wrist entirely and disappeared through the door. Gavin blinked once, twice, the fog lifting now. He looked around as if coming out of a deep sleep and kneaded at his eyes with his fingertips. It was only now that he noticed the scent of mildew oozing from the walls. It tickled his nose and reminded him of a flooded basement he’d once smelled a few years back. Decay added another depth of nuance to the stench, and beneath that the putrid stink of something rotten. Garbage maybe. Perhaps rotten food. 

How the hell had he climbed five flights of stairs breathing this air and not snapped out of that daze sooner? Gavin dropped his hand and fumbled for his hip, only then realizing his gun was gone. Holster too. Holy fucking shit. 

He put his hand on the railing and took a step back towards the stairs. The door to Nines’s apartment was still open, still dark, a lion’s den with no way of knowing what lay just beyond the shadow obscuring the interior. A sense of foreboding filled Gavin from head to toe. Why was he here? Why had he gone along with all of this? 

The shadow at the doorway moved. Gavin took another step back, but those clear blue eyes swam into focus and suddenly everything was shrouded in mist once more. The fear dissipated. The unease floated away like smoke in the breeze. Nines put on a tiny little smile and leaned against the door frame. 

“Come on in, Officer Reed,” he called out quietly. “I have your coat just inside.”

Gavin could only nod, following those eyes into the darkness beyond the threshold. 

The fog masked a lot of what he was seeing once he was standing in the center of Nines’s place. The apartment was tiny, and even saying that much was giving it too much credit. It was a single room with one branching off doorway that probably led to a bathroom Gavin had no desire to see based on the front room’s current state, and then another that he could see probably held a small kitchen. The floor was bare hardwood, scuffed and splintered in places and in desperate need of sanding, staining, and--barring that--complete incineration. There was no furniture to speak of, just a cardboard box in the corner that held traces of Nines’s wardrobe and a single full-size mattress laying directly on the floor, no blankets or pillows to speak of in sight. 

Gavin looked up and saw that the two or three windows the place had were covered up with thick bolts of fabric and black garbage bags. Secured by staples and duct tape, it added another sense of disquiet that screamed mutedly at Gavin through the din of his muddled thoughts. No traction in there though for those fears to catch on. Gavin just sat and stared blankly, eyes tracing the pitiful living conditions until they settled on the familiar shape of his coat folded neatly at the side of Nines’s poor excuse of a bed. 

“Go ahead,” that soft, caressing voice recited near his ear. Gavin turned his head woodenly and saw how close Nines had gotten to him while he looked around the room. “Go ahead and take your coat, officer.”

Heat rolled down the back of Gavin’s neck. Despite the surroundings, despite every ounce of self-preservation screaming at him to run, Gavin still felt attracted to the person beside him. He swallowed thickly and turned towards the mattress. He took a step closer, and then another. One more put him at the other side of the room-- it really was that small of an apartment. He bent down to pick up the coat. He lifted it and turned to face Nines. He wasn’t surprised to see that Nines was barely an arm’s length from him now, following him like a shadow. 

There wasn’t much light in this place. The overhead bulb was yellow and weak, probably on the verge of burning out completely. It was enough though. Enough to see that Nines was gorgeous, tall, leggy and pale and perfect. Gavin found his eyes drawn to the laced up slit running down his chest. He wanted to drag his mouth down that line. He wanted to go lower than the slit, to keep going until Nines’s perfect fucking face showed something more than blank frustration on its sharp planes. He wanted to put his hands on Nines’s hips, on those teasing patches of skin that peeked free at his hip bones. The top was some sort of leotard or something with a cut like that to it. God, Gavin wanted to see what it looked like on him beneath the jeans. 

Nines’s nostrils flared. His cheeks held the barest hint of color along the cheekbones. “You’re aroused,” he said slowly, eyes softening just a bit. He took a step closer, putting his hand on Gavin’s chest. Right over his heart. His head cocked. He looked so damn demure as he batted his eyes and whispered, “Aren’t you?”

No time to answer. The hand gave a swift push and Gavin was sent backwards, gravity doing the rest. Gavin let out a grunt--ungraceful and embarrassing--and hit the grungy mattress ass-first. He barely bounced on the ancient, broken springs, and he fought to sit up when the thing seemed intent on sucking him in and keeping him there. “Woah, woah,” he rushed, face beginning to burn as Nines crouched down and inched closer, all sleek long lines and temptingly bared skin. If Gavin were any other person and Nines anyone else too, he might have considered it, but as it was… “I’m a cop.” This was almost a disgusting abuse of power. 

Nines paused at the side of the mattress. His face was barely six inches from Gavin, the perfect distance to-- “That’s exactly why I’m interested, Officer Reed,” that smooth, low voice said, breaking Gavin from his perverted thoughts before they had a chance to go down a road they certainly shouldn’t go. Nines’s hand shot out faster than Gavin could follow, grabbing him beneath the chin to tilt his head up. To make him look him in the eye. 

Part of Gavin wanted to wheeze. The breath definitely left his chest as that magnetic weight returned, an insistent pressure against the back of his eyes and the base of his neck that told him to listen, to obey, that nothing else in this world would make him feel more fulfilled than to just  _ listen.  _ Nines slowly sank down onto the mattress, his knees denting the old cushion. His fingers--cold and firm--moved lower, curling themselves around Gavin’s throat. His head was tilted up. Nines pressed his cold nose to the crook of his neck. His breath was a tickle of icy wind when he sighed at whatever it was he felt there. 

“I have some questions for you,” Nines whispered. His voice was quiet, pervasive, riding the thudding beats of Gavin’s heart throbbing in his ears. “Will you answer them?”

No hesitation. “Yes.” 

“Good, good.” The hand tightened slightly, dull nails biting into Gavin’s skin. Nines stayed there, his nose to Gavin’s jugular, and didn’t pull himself away for another minute or so. When he did, he did so with a harsh sigh. His eyes were black again. Gavin had to think he liked them better blue. “What were you doing at that school?”

“Looking around.” Sticking his nose into things. Gavin wanted to touch Nines. Was that okay? His fingers twitched and he curled them into a loose fist, lifting it easily as he kept talking. “They found the body there. I wanted to see the crime scene. See what they missed. God, you’re so cold. I gave you my coat. Why don’t you wear it if you’re this cold?”

Nines’s eyes widened. He broke away from looking at Gavin to look at the hand now fondling his thigh. The corner of Nines’s lip twitched, but he didn’t smack Gavin away or tell him to stop. He just let out a soft breath. “What they missed? Did they miss something?”

Gavin frowned, scoffing. He gripped Nines’s thigh tightly. “They think its some new killer.”

“And you don’t?”

Gavin shook his head. 

“What do you think it is, then?”

A small voice in the back of Gavin’s mind told him he shouldn’t be talking to a civilian about an open case. He shouldn’t be sitting on the dirty ass bed of a prostitute either, fondling his thigh and staring into his brilliant eyes as Nines’s soft, low voice crooned to him that everything was fine, that he could tell him anything. That he  _ wanted  _ to tell him. That it would all be fine. It… It felt nice, thinking it was all fine. It felt nice to think that someone wanted to listen to him. That someone, even someone like Nines, thought his leads were worth hearing. 

He hadn’t realized he’d been staring until Nines’s perfect face furrowed into a tight frown. The hand still situated at Gavin’s collar pushed him back, flattening him on the mattress so Nines could straddle his hips and dominate every aspect of his attention. Gavin’s body burned. His breath came a little faster. 

“What is your name, Officer Reed?” 

Mouth dry, heart hammering, he croaked out, “Gavin.” 

“Gavin.” Nines blinked slowly and stroked the pad of his cool thumb over Gavin’s fluttering pulse point. “I want you to answer my questions, Gavin. I know it’s difficult; it’s hard on me too, but I need you to do it. What do you think is behind these killings? Why are you, a beat cop, investigating this case at all?”

Nines was right. It was getting increasingly more difficult to focus on the questions. The weight in his head was trickling outwards, taking with it all his focus and will power. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to fuck. He wanted the body hovering over him to be beneath him, using that perfect fucking voice to say his name a few more times, louder and louder and louder. But Nines wanted him to answer the questions. He wanted him to do his best, and Gavin… Fuck, Gavin was going to do it. He was going to do it no matter how hard it was. 

“I want to help,” Gavin whispered, voice husky and rough. “Fuckin’ detectives don’t see the parallels. Won’t see them. Not a new killer, just some… some old cult activity probably. Back in the seventies we had the same sort of thing, just… This is all messier. Some old cult copycat.” He opened his eyes and stared into Nines’s hovering above him. He put his hand on that thigh again, squeezing it gently. “You get me, right? I saw the fuckin’ photos, and the detectives all ignored the old files and I’m over here checkin’ the crime scenes and--”

Nines’s eyes widened and he quickly cut Gavin off with a low, “You checked the crime scenes?”

Gavin stumbled over his words. The pressure grew thin for a few seconds, and there was a moment where he wondered why he was here, where “here” even really was. He began to frown, but then Nines seemed to realize what his outburst had done. His eyes practically seared themselves into Gavin’s as he brought their faces close together, prompting Gavin’s head to swim horribly until he flopped back down onto the mattress with a muted thud. 

“You checked the crime scenes,” Nines repeated once more, only much more reserved than before, his voice returned to that silken quality that made it so pleasing to listen to. “What did you see there? Were there blood piles in the dirt?”

The voice was like a whisper past Gavin’s ears. He turned towards it, but couldn’t quite lift his head to follow it. He closed his eyes and shook his head a little. “Fuckin’ found most of them. Not much blood at ‘em. Weird stains, but not piles,” he slurred, wishing he could make his eyes open. He wanted to look at Nines some more. “Well, maybe. I dunno. Fuck is a pile of blood? Might be in the file. Took pictures. Didn’t trust those fuckin’ detectives.”

Silence. Tense silence. Gavin fidgeted and cracked open his eyes. Through the dark of the room he could see Nines staring at him hard, his jaw tense and his teeth worrying his bottom lip furiously. The bright curve of a fang glistened at him weakly. Disquiet churned in the pit of his stomach at the sight. 

“Not the files in your car.”

It was a question. Gavin swallowed. He had a feeling the answer was more important than the blase tone would imply. He shook his head. He licked at his chapped lips. “No,” he breathed. “Not the ones in my car.”

Nines narrowed his eyes. His gaze drifted lower. He tapped at Gavin’s jugular. His fingers were warmer now. Gavin wished they’d move lower. A lot lower. 

“Are you going to kill me?” Gavin wondered aloud, prompting the fingers to still. 

He wasn’t quite sure what prompted him to ask the question. He felt… safe. He felt safe the way a cow might before it caught on to the slaughterhouse in front of him. Resigned, maybe. He trailed his fingers along the shape of Nines’s thigh and let out a low breath. Tonight felt like a dream almost. Like none of this was real. 

Nines’s eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared slightly. He cocked his head like a vulture examining a piece of flesh and leaned down a little. “That depends, Officer Reed,” he whispered. “You’ve seen a lot tonight. Probably too much.”

Gavin sensed the  _ but  _ coming. He inhaled, exhaled, and curled his fingers on Nines’s thigh. It’d grown warm from the heat of his hand. 

He nearly choked on his clumsy tongue when Nines leaned forward and began pawing at his pants and waist. The lethargy clinging to him wouldn’t let him react outwardly. He prayed it’d keep his dick in check too, and he let out a harsh huff when Nines dipped his hand into his back pocket and fished out his wallet from within. 

“What the fuck?” Gavin snapped weakly. He looked at Nines and Nines looked at him, looked at him  _ hard  _ and the placid feeling mounted, built, and overtook him without hesitation. The fight disappeared. Nines opened his wallet and scanned the contents. His pale fingers plucked a card out of one of the pockets. A business card, one of the many he kept in a holder on his desk in case he needed to provide his contact information to informants, witnesses, or fellow officers. 

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Nines suggested in a soft, pervasive voice. He slipped the card into his back pocket and put the wallet into the pocket of Gavin’s jacket laying next to him on the bed. “It’s been such a long night. You must be very, very tired.”

Gavin’s eyelids were heavy, lead weights that tugged and pulled and fought brutally to make him do just that. “My shift…” he mumbled, trying and failing to sit up. A hand on his shoulder kept him down. “They’ll notice if… if I go missing. Can’t kill me.”

The barest hint of a chuckle, but maybe that was just Gavin’s imagination. “It’ll be alright. I’ll see to everything.” 

For some reason, Gavin believed him. Even if he didn’t he couldn’t do much about it. His eyes refused to open. The broken springs of the mattress felt like a cloud, and Gavin mumbled something unintelligible. The darkness was beckoning him. He didn’t have the strength to turn in the other direction. 

The ghostly touch of cold fingers along his clavicle tickled Gavin’s skin. 

“Sleep, Officer Reed. Sleep.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy thanksgiving!!! may your day be filled with good food and good company and thoughts of nines in a tiny little crop top <3

Something rough like sandpaper scraped Gavin’s cheek. He cracked open an eye, then winced when it happened again. Then again. Then again. 

“Mrao!” a small, insistent voice cried. “Mrao, mraaaaaaaao!”

“Whuh?” he mumbled, struggling to lift his head. There was a heavy weight on his chest. He blinked furiously and craned his neck, groaning when he saw a familiar pair of green eyes staring straight on back at him. 

“Tildie, for fuck’s sake,” he groaned, hooking his hand beneath his cat’s body to lift her onto the bed. She mewed raspily at him for it, but Gavin was immune to her charms. Mostly immune. Call it a work in progress. He sucked on his tongue and grimaced at the taste, shoving himself into a sitting position as he took in the room around him. His bedroom stared back at him in all of its unimpressive glory. Yesterday’s clothes were strewn over the floor. The door was open too, giving him a bit of a view into the living room. He’d left the lights on. Nice. 

Matilda, seeing him somewhat awake, let out another throaty meow. She immediately tried to crawl back into his lap, and it took another muted swear and a few ear scratches to assuage her for long enough to kick off the tangle of sheets holding him to the bed. 

They hit the floor and Gavin froze, staring at his feet with wide, shocked eyes. 

He’d gone to bed still wearing his shoes. 

“What… the actual fuck,” Gavin said to the silent room. He’d done a lot of stupid shit coming home from a long night shift. He’d forgotten his keys in the car and had to stomp back down three flights of stairs to get them after arriving at his locked door stymied. He’d poured Matilda’s cat food into his cereal bowl and Lucky Charms into her cat bowl. Hell, he’d left every light on and passed out face down on the couch with a pizza in the oven before. 

But this? He stared a little harder at his boots. He’d never once forgotten to take his fucking shoes off before crawling into bed. 

A measure of panic rippled through his chest. He clutched at his hair and stared at the wall, at the lights still on in the living room beyond the door. Matilda gave another yowl near the door, urging him to get his ass out of bed already to feed her. That was… yeah. He needed to… Just… He made himself get up, to stamp down the mounting panic creeping into his chest. The lights were on. His shoes were on. His head hurt and he… he couldn’t remember how he got home last night. He moved towards Matilda mechanically. 

Muscle memory carried him through his usual wake up routine. He filled Matilda’s food bowl and freshened up her water, then went to her litter box to take care of that next. He toed off his shoes and went into the bathroom, running the shower until the room was filled with so much fog that he could barely see how tired he looked when he bent over the sink to brush his teeth in front of the mirror. He put off shaving for another day; his mind was too frazzled for something like that. He reached for a clean undershirt and dressed in his uniform. 

Bad as it was to admit it, he couldn’t remember what he’d done last night after going out on patrol. He must have gone back to the precinct. A quick look at his phone showed no new calls, no new emails. Tina had texted him around four a.m. to request he bring her back something from Taco Bell. The message had gone unread, but she apparently didn’t find it odd enough to text again. 

Gavin’s fingers hovered over the touchpad, aching to ask  _ Did I seem weird to you last night.  _ Tina would probably know if he had. The water in his hair dripped onto his arms as he stared at the dimming screen. He could ask her. She’d tell him. 

He closed his phone and shoved it into his pocket. She’d tell him alright, then she’d ask why he wanted to know. He’d have to admit something was wrong, and even if something  _ was  _ wrong, he sure as shit didn’t want to admit it out loud. He finished shrugging on his uniform and slipped his feet back into his fucking boots. Matilda lifted her head and watched him walk past her to snatch up his keys, badge, wallet, and gun. 

“Next time I zombie walk in here, you better bite me until I snap out of it,” he told her, picking her up to bury his face in her soft fur. He felt like a dick for that too. Normally he woke up hours before his shift to do chores, eat, run errands, and most importantly, play with Matilda. She nuzzled his head and licked at his damp hair, probably thinking he was going to make up for all that time sleeping now. 

“I gotta go to work now, baby,” he told her, setting her down reluctantly. She rubbed against his shins and meowed her throaty little meow. Gavin smiled and gave her one last lingering pet. “I’ll make it up to you tonight, okay? We’ll watch Lion King and everything.”

She gave him a little sashay and blink, following him towards the door as he made to leave. He reached out a hand and snagged his coat out of rote muscle memory, cooing to her and nudging her away from the opening. He tugged his arms through the sleeves and zipped it up too for good measure. Matilda set herself down on the mat by the door, meowing softly as he closed it and then locked it behind himself. Gavin sighed, leaning his weight against the cool door. 

It took precisely forty-five seconds for Gavin to realize what was wrong with the current situation. 

The bottom fell out of his stomach. He looked down at his coat—at the coat he’d last seen a week ago in the arms of a random prostitute—and then looked back up again to stare in horror at the far wall of the landing. 

He’d seen Nines last night, hadn’t he? He’d… Oh, fuck.   

The paranoia only increased once he got into the station. He barely heard the usual crew shout their greetings at his back. He kept his head down and collapsed into his desk, gripping his head tightly to yank at his hair. 

He knew it wasn’t allowed, taking home open case files. Duplicates weren’t supposed to leave the precinct for confidentiality reasons, but well… It’d never been an issue before for him. He’d always kept an eye on them, bringing them inside with him when he went home for the night. Even if they sat in his car, they were always hidden between the seat and the central armrest, kept out of sight in case someone decided to snoop around. It wasn’t allowed and he’d broken nearly half a dozen rules moonlighting the way he was, but Christ _ ,  _ how the  _ fuck  _ had someone gotten into his car?

There was no proof of course. Nothing to make it easier on him to rationalize. There was no sign of the door being jimmied or the lock broken. His apartment complex had underground parking too, and it wasn’t like the window had been broken and the radio fucking stolen along with it. Gavin leaned back in his seat and bounced his leg beneath his desk hard enough to rattle the pens tucked away in a spare mug. 

The harder he thought about it, the more a single face began to take root behind his eyes. Pale skin, dark hair, and eyes like the winter cold. Gavin’s stomach churned with… something. Something he couldn’t put a name to. He’d… seen Nines last night, hadn’t he? He had a feeling he had. He  _ must  _ have, else how the hell had he gotten back his coat? Where did he see him? At some… school? No. At the playground where that body had been found. Why had— No,  _ how  _ had the rest of the encounter gone? Heat burned in his cheeks. Had he… Oh, God, please don’t let it be that. 

He’d checked his car thoroughly before coming into the precinct. He couldn’t help himself. He had to know what he’d done, where he’d gone,  _ when  _ he might have gotten those files fucked with. The gps had a tracker aspect to it, something put in to make sure cops stuck to their patrols. No one ever bothered to check the data unless something happened. 

Gavin figured that all of  _ this  _ constituted as something  _ happening.  _

He carefully pulled the scribbled addresses he’d written down on an old takeout bag out of his coat pocket. Some of the addresses he recognized right away. They fell in line with his usual patrol routes, and the gps only bothered to ping places if the car lingered there for longer than an average stoplight stop. He skimmed over the addresses and found the schoolyard near the bottom. After that, the list went into the unknown before ending at his fucking house. 

His car had stopped before his house though. Stopped at an address smackdab in the middle of the shitty part of town no patrol ever ran. 

Gavin tucked the bag beneath his keyboard and quickly brought up the database they used to run names and numbers and license plates and addresses. He typed in the address and hit enter, and then promptly frowned at what came up for it. Housing records tended to be a matter of public record, and even if some households opted out of it, they sure as shit couldn’t opt out of a police database. The apartment complex only housed maybe a dozen residents, shitty as it was. Gavin distinctly recalled stairs, cold, and the rickety old number 509. He scrolled down to resident 509 and was met with a police officer’s worst nightmare.

**John Doe.**

Who the fuck was Nines? Some kind of psycho? Fucking  _ mob?  _ Detroit still had a mob, and maybe they were wanting info on the killer? He could distantly recall listening to some of the older guys chat about their O.C. days, back when R.I.C.O. was still the way to go when it came to an easy collar. About how mob killers sometimes overlapped with the usual kind, how they’d take care of shit on their own and tell the police to butt out. Was that why this case was going nowhere? Gavin paled, swallowing hard. Christ, what the hell had he gotten himself into? 

“Hey, Reed!” Person called out from across the bullpen. Gavin blinked and lifted his head. His heart seized in his chest for no discernable reason beyond the thought that somehow they knew how badly he had fucked up. He spotted Person by the door. A quick scan told him nothing. 

“What do you want?” he called back. He clicked out of his case files, out of the database still blinking the name **John Doe** at him with too much cheer for this fucking mood he was in. He shouldn’t work on this shit anywhere but at home now. Just to be safe. 

“You’ve got a visitor? Some ah… Well, it’s a 647B. Askin’ for you directly.”

The entire bullpen went silent at that. Gavin’s neck began to burn. A prostitute. 

“Ah,” he croaked, hating how everyone stared. He forced himself to his feet and nearly tripped coming out from behind his desk. He stumbled again when Tina let out a loud wolf whistle. He bared his teeth and shot her a glare hot enough to melt metal. “Would you grow the fuck up?”

“Why lecture me?” she asked, kicking back in her chair and tugging her office blanket higher in her lap. “Don’t you have a Roxanne to be enticing off the streets?”

Gavin was going to kill her. He was seriously going to fucking kill her. He was a cop too. He could get away with it. He shuffled past her desk and “tripped” over the cord to her space heater, jerking the plug out of the wall and cutting off the flow of hot air beneath her desk. “Oops,” he said dryly, savoring the way she hissed and flipped him off. 

It made him feel better, that dose of normality. Just enough that he was able to walk out of the bullpen and meet face-to-face with the object of the night’s—hell, the whole week’s—distress.   

Nines stood right outside of holding, pale and pretty and dressed in what had to be the most sinfully tight outfit Gavin had ever had the displeasure of seeing in his workplace. Tonight it was tight black skinny jeans tucked into knee high boots, his shirt a crop top that showed an inadvisable amount of chest for the weather outside. This outfit had sleeves at least, but they were thin pleather and skin tight. Ben Collins, one of the few detectives to volunteer to take night shift this quarter, was hovering near him, holding out a cup of shitty coffee as if that might put some color on the man’s pale cheeks. Ben was a softie like that, and a grandfather to boot. He probably had already given Nines his cell phone number and an offer to help him find a warm place to sleep if he needed it once his business here was through. 

Little did Ben know that Nines had a place to put his feet up. He’d shown Gavin himself just last night.

Nines was in the midst of taking the cup from him when Gavin found his voice. It began as a dry cough, then after a throat clearing morphed into a husky, “You again?” 

Ben glanced over his shoulder and smiled, patting Nines on the shoulder before moving to walk away. “You just let me know if you need anything, y’hear?” he said, squeezing Nines’s arm and then letting go. He turned away and met Gavin’s eyes as he passed him. “Get him a blanket or something, Reed. He’s freezing in that outfit.”

Gavin didn’t have a response to give that statement. He didn’t know how to tell Ben he’d already given him his coat only for it to mysteriously end up back in his home. Hell, he didn’t know how to tell Ben any of the shit he was quickly recalling now that he had Nines in front of him. There was something about the fluorescent lights shining down on him that felt at odds with Gavin’s perception of him. It was hard to be taken in, hard to ignore the tight knot of disquiet Gavin felt when looking at him. They’d only ever seen one another in shitty outdoor lighting. To see him here, now… 

It put into stark relief just how unsettling Nines was up close. 

Ben left the room. Gavin and Nines were all that was left besides some snoring drunk one of the other officers had brought in to keep from freezing to death on the doorstep of a bar. 

“What do you want?” Gavin asked, breaking the silence when it was clear Nines wouldn’t do it first. It was so creepy how Nines could stand so still. “What… What the fuck did you do to me last night?”

Nines came to life all at once. He took a smooth step forward and Gavin immediately took one backwards. Nines froze, then set the full cup of coffee on the table by the wall. Gavin kept looking at it, unsure of what he was expecting. Maybe he’d thought Nines might throw it at him. Maybe he’d just thought the frigid fucker would’ve drank a sip before abandoning it completely. Nines cocked his head and blinked slowly. Like a cat, Gavin thought first.

Then, those cold blue eyes narrowed. No, Gavin amended, taking another step back. Like a predator. 

“You can’t do shit here,” Gavin said, shocking himself with how steady he sounded. He’d left his gun back at his desk. He shouldn’t sound so fucking steady. “This place is full of cops.”

A dark brow arched delicately. “I’m aware,” Nines said in his smooth, rich voice. “But I only came here for you.”

“Is it just a talent you have to sound like a fucking serial killer? What the fuck do you want? How the hell did I get back home last night?”

Nines crossed his arms and looked past Gavin’s shoulder at the sleeping drunk. He narrowed his eyes and then slowly shifted his gaze back to Gavin. When he spoke, his voice was markedly softer. “I suspect you drove, Officer Reed,” he replied. “Is there someplace more private where we can speak?”

Gavin balked at the idea of going anywhere remote with this guy. He’d been into it before the first time they met, and maybe even the second time too. Despite the trepidation filling Gavin to the brim, he couldn’t help seeing how attractive Nines still was. He closed his eyes and prepared himself for that… for that sinking, drowning feeling to take hold. He breathed in, then exhaled hard. When he opened his eyes, he felt nothing out of the ordinary. 

“Why?” he said cuttingly. Why couldn’t they talk where there were witnesses?

Nines’s gaze was piercing. Still no sinking feeling. “Because,” he said tersely, “I doubt someone as ambitious as you would enjoy having your claim to a new lead broadcasted to the precinct at large.”

Gavin’s eyes widened. He stopped trying to back away. “What lead?” he said under his breath, glancing around to make sure no one was about to walk in on them. The coast was still clear. He stared hard at Nines. “For what case?”

Slowly Nines folded his arms around his chest. “You know which one,” he said quietly, keeping his gaze on the far wall. 

Fuck. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Gavin’s hand tangled in the back of his hair, mind spiralling as he went through his options. There was no way to know for sure if Nines was fucking with him or not. The truth of the matter was that Nines could easily be the fucking killer himself. Hell, Gavin had caught him at the playground last night, and it was abnormal psychology 101 that murderers had a tendency to return to the scene of the crime, to relive the experience at the expense of keeping under the radar. He looked at Nines carefully, his teeth cutting deep as he bit down hard enough to taste copper. He was still in the precinct though. If he’d come here to hurt Gavin, he’d fucked up royally. 

“Fine,” he said sharply. “You have ten minutes. Try  _ anything  _ I don’t like and I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again.” Which was a fucking bluff on his part, big time. Unless Nines took a swing at him on camera, there was shit-all he could do to prove assault, especially if Nines did that… that fucking drowning feeling shit again. He jerked his head towards the offices. “Come on. We can talk in the interrogation room.”

Nines blinked placidly and didn’t protest the option. His lips curled into a slight smile. “Alright.” He strode forward and moved in the direction Gavin indicated, and Gavin steeled himself with a swift inhale before following after. As he’d expected, all eyes were on them when they came into view of the bullpen. Ben was back in his desk and staring critically, probably upset that Gavin hadn’t listened to him and gotten Nines a damn blanket. Person was hiding behind a computer terminal, eyes peeking out overtop. And Tina… 

Fucking  _ Tina  _ was bundled up like a burrito in her desk, her shit-eating grin luminous as she watched them move towards the back rooms. Gavin hung behind Nines and mouthed at her to shut the fuck up. She wiggled in her seat and retorted with,  _ So, that’s Nines, huh?  _

Before Gavin could do something drastic like throw her fucking space heater through Fowler’s glass office wall, Nines was turning, glancing at him over his shoulder. “Where to next, Officer Reed?” he asked, indicating to lead the way. Gavin’s face burned hot and he shoved roughly past him, moving at a fast clip to evade the humiliation oozing out of his fucking coworkers. He paused for just a minute at his desk to pull his gun from the drawer though. Like hell was he going into that closed off room unarmed. No fucking way. 

As soon as he reached the interrogation room, Gavin had the door flung open and Nines’s elbow seized, dragging him inside as quickly as he could physically manage. For a guy so big he’d expected some resistance, but Nines had been pliant, almost welcoming the direction. 

“Sit down there,” Gavin huffed, brushing the thought off as he closed the door behind them. He entered his passcode information on the dial by the door, sending out a notice that the room was in use. It was doubtful anyone else would need to use it this late; hell, it was nearly two a.m., but it never hurt to be cautious. 

“Now,” he said, turning around to face Nines. The man had slipped into the chair silently, his hands folded on the table in front of him. “Get to talking. You’ve got ten minutes before I throw you out in the cold.”

“Before we begin,” Nines said, watching him like a hawk as Gavin slowly sat himself down in the chair opposite of him. “I’d like to ask if there are recording devices in this room.”

_ And I’d like to ask where the fuck you get off taking me back to your place and then letting me wake up at home alone,  _ Gavin retorted smarmily in his head. But he was an adult. He knew how to be professional. He leaned back in his chair and gave Nines a discerning look. Well, he hoped it came off as discerning. Because that’s what he was. Discerning. Not bitter. Totally not bitter. 

“Nope,” he said discerningly-not-bitterly. “None.”

Nines lifted a brow. He looked pointedly over Gavin’s shoulder at the far corner where the tiniest pinprick spot of a camera lens rested at the top of the wall. Then, his gaze shifted down, down, settling on the microphone nodes that rested just five feet from the table. Nines cleared his throat and looked at Gavin again, the silent request to cut the bullshit louder than his murmured request of, “Can you turn them off, please?”

Gavin tried to keep his poker face up, to wait it out. Nines looked at him unflinchingly though. Unblinkingly too. Fuck, that was disconcerting. Gavin shifted in his chair and swore under his breath. 

“Fine,” he muttered, lifting himself out of the chair to key in another code. This wasn’t standard protocol in the slightest, and he was definitely going to earn himself another smattering of rumors when Tina came to check the recordings later. Fucking nosy bitch would want to see what they were talking about. She’d draw her own conclusions when she saw the blank tapes and empty voice recorders. 

He stomped back over to the table and threw himself down, all air of professionalism lost. The cameras were off, so who the fuck cared. “They’re off,” he said roughly. “Now fucking talk.”

Nines shifted in his seat a little. The pleather of his sleeves crackled softly with the movement. “I’m not sure where to begin,” he admitted quietly. “There’s… Hmm. There is quite a lot I came here to talk to you about.”

“Why don’t you start with what it is you know about this case that I don’t.”

Nines let out a short chuff. It might have been a laugh, but it passed by before Gavin could tell for sure. “Well, I know who the killer is,” Nines said, and Gavin’s eyes opened wide. “Or, I should say, I know  _ what  _ the killer is. That’s considerably more than you know, Officer.”

Gavin hummed noncommittally. He let his eyes drift down to Nines’s lips, then a bit lower to the teasing curve of his cleavage just visible above the tight neckline of his crop top. He was still pissed. Royally pissed, actually, about everything that had happened the night before. He told himself to focus on that anger. Stare him in the eyes, not the tits. 

“And  _ what  _ is the killer?” he asked, tensing up when Nines’s eyes glinted when they met his again. Fuck, it was like he knew Gavin had been ogling him. “While you’re at it,  _ what  _ are you? I keep running into you. I found you last night at a corded off crime scene. You  _ took  _ me back to your place, then rifled through my fucking case files.”

Nines’s eyes widened a little. “You remember that much, do you.” A short huff. “I must be getting rusty.”

Gavin screwed up his face in concentration. “You best be getting chatty, Nines,” he said shortly. “‘Cause I don’t appreciate getting jerked around.”

Blue eyes rolled. Gavin boiled, but then Nines was looking at him again and speaking. “Like I said before, I’m not sure where to start. There’s a lot you don’t know and not enough time tonight to tell you everything you need to know. I can tell you that your killer isn’t what the rest of your organization believes it to be. Your assumptions last night—which  _ you  _ told  _ me— _ are much closer to the truth.” He blinked carefully and cleared his throat a bit. “You were right to assume this was simply the continuation of something from the past. A cult was what you called it.”

Alright. Now they were getting somewhere. Gavin sat a little straighter in his chair and leaned in. “I’m taking it’s not quite a cult if that’s how you’re wording it,” he guessed shrewdly. Nines rewarded him with a nod. 

“It’s not a cult as you know it, but a…” He bit down on his lip. “You’ll have to understand, what I’m telling you isn’t strictly permitted. There are forces at work in this city, in the world itself, far beyond anything you’ve ever dealt with before. The killer you’re looking for, and that I’m looking for as well, is a member of this group. In fact, I was specially tasked with seeking them out and putting an end to the murders. I’m… I suppose I’m like you within my organization. Though I normally am assigned to internal affairs within my specific group.”

Now he was losing him. Gavin pulled a frown and ran a hand through his hair. He let his fingers curl in the hair at the back of his neck, tugging on the longish locks for a moment as he pondered it all. “So, you’re telling me you’re some kind of cop,” he translated. He quirked a brow towards his hairline. “You got a badge to back all this up?”

Nines pursed his lips and shook his head. “It’s not that kind of organization. By nature of what I am I’m an officer. It’s… complicated. I can explain it in detail later.” 

“Okay…” He’d wondered vaguely the same before, that perhaps Nines was someone investigating or involved. “Is this… mob related?” Gavin wasn’t sure if he wanted it to be or not. It’d complicate and simplify things all at once. He hadn’t had enough coffee tonight to prepare him for it either way.

“It’s nothing human related,” came the flat answer. “But if it makes it easier for you to wrap your head around, then yes, think of it like that. Think of it as a giant, pervasive organization that has its fingers in every aspect of your waking life without you or any other human being any the wiser. Imagine that one small strand of this great big web has deviated from protocol. Your killer is that strand, Officer Reed. It’s something you’ve never dreamed of before. Something you can’t possibly catch without knowing its true nature.”

There was something in Nines’s tone that gave him pause. He wanted to… Fuck, Gavin wanted to laugh at this. He wanted to hammer on the one-way mirror and demand to know if Tina was filming this shit just to fuck with him for those space heater boyfriend comments. He sucked on his teeth and tried to summon up the mettle to do it. To laugh. 

But he couldn’t. Nines wasn’t smiling. Nothing about him read as if he were pulling one over on him. 

“And what is its true nature?” Gavin made himself ask in lieu of a laugh that wouldn’t come. He cleared his throat when his voice wavered slightly. “And why the hell do you think you can do anything to help me catch it?”

Nines held his chin high and didn’t hesitate in the slightest as he said, “It’s a vampire, and I am too.” 

The words had precisely three seconds of silence following them before Gavin completely shattered the heavy mood with a laugh so loud that it shook the table beneath him. Nines flinched and frowned, but Gavin just kept laughing. Oh God, Tina  _ definitely  _ had a camera pointed at him right now. Fucking hell, and he’d almost gone along with it! What kind of long con was this? Did the whole night crew get in on it, hiring some stony faced actor with a body like an hourglass to drag him through the fucking weeds just to ruin it with  _ vampires  _ of all things?

“Fuck, fucking hell,” he choked, tears threatening to run down his cheeks. “Fuckin’ Tina, I swear to God. Tell her to end this already and give you a tip for your trouble, ‘cause buddy, I don’t think even an Emmy winner could say that line without makin’ me lose my goddamn mind.”

“Tina… Who is Tina?” Nines frowned, his nose wrinkling as he crossed his arms. “Do you think this is a prank?”

“What else could it be?” Gavin wheezed, wiping his eyes as he slowly composed himself. “Don’t tell me you actually expect me to believe all that shit you just spouted off?” 

The man sitting across from him just stared, still stone-faced, still as serious as the grave. Slowly the chuckles died off. Gavin sucked in a breath of air and managed a nervous sort of smile. Ah. He was serious. Greaaaat. 

“If you’re serious, I think we have bigger things to worry about right now,” he said slowly, hoping Nines wouldn’t make him do something drastic. “Like what sort of medication you’re clearly not taking.” Clearly the alternative would be that everything Gavin had just been through in the past twenty-four hours actually happened, and that was just way too much for him to deal with right now. Not on half a thermos of coffee. He couldn’t be expected to handle the alternative, so obviously it was Nines being fucking insane. 

“I can prove it if you don’t believe me,” Nines said simply. “Would you like me to prove it, Officer?”

Gavin gave him a magnanimous smile. God, why were the hot ones always so fucking crazy. “Yeah,” he said, crossing his arms. “Why don’t you prove it to me, and after that we can go take a nice long drive down to the hospital where some nice doctors will give you a nice cozy white room—” 

Before he could finish his targeted jab, the mood in the room turned to ice. Gavin choked on his words as Nines’s face completely shifted. His eyes burned a soulless black as his lips curled back to reveal a mouthful of fangs that hadn’t previously been there. His jaw lengthened. The clicking of bone shattered what little composure Gavin had left. Nines’s jaw dislocated and Gavin promptly lost his utter shit. 

He threw himself backward and tripped over the chair, knocking it to the floor in his haste to put as much distance between himself and the monster in front of him as he could. He reached for his gun and—

“Keep it in the holster, please,” Nines ordered, voice perfectly even but for the slightest slur of his words past the rows of sharp glistening teeth. A wave of that sinking, drowning feeling swarmed over Gavin in a rush, locking his joints in place before he could draw. Nines blinked slowly, the visage of horror that had become his face fading before Gavin’s eyes. Gavin winced as the jaw relocated with a sickening  _ snap.  _ “I did warn you, Officer Reed.” The pressure abated a moment later. 

There was a lot running through Gavin’s mind. The impossibility for that to have been some high-end prosthetic, that Nines had somehow managed to drug him and this was just one big hallucination. That… That sickly, suffocating feeling he’d grown familiar with from before. Gavin sucked in a lungful of air and felt something in his worldview give a sickeningly sharp lurch. The world realigned. It widened to accept what was clearly right in front of him. 

He came to terms with the fact that this was the only thing that explained what the fuck had happened to him last night. 

“You sure as shit didn’t warn enough for  _ that,”  _ he hissed, slowly letting go of his gun. God, his heart was going a mile a minute. He clapped his hand over it, sucking in deep breaths as he grabbed the tipped over chair from the floor and righted it once more. He needed the moment to process… everything. It was all real then, wasn’t it? Who in their right mind would make up all that shit about clans and politics and fucking  _ vampires _ and then show him a sight like  _ that  _ just for shits and giggles? 

Nines shifted self-consciously in his seat. He folded his hands on the table in front of him, then thought better of it and pulled them into his lap. Gavin grunted and dropped into his chair, dragging it back up to the table a bit louder than strictly necessary. There was no trace of the monster he’d just been a moment ago left on Nines’s pretty face. His eyes were perhaps a shade darker blue, but that was it. 

“Alright,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound quite as manic as he felt. “Let’s say this is all fucking real. Let’s say there really are fucking v…  _ vampires  _ running around the city and controlling everything. What the fuck does any of this have to do with me? Why the hell did you come here of all places to tell me, a fucking beat cop, any of this?”

“Truthfully?” Nines asked. “You have access to resources I don’t. Embarrassing as it is to admit, the human law enforcement teams tend to stumble upon the crime scenes first, and those within my own version of law enforcement don’t have access to your servers or databases. I suppose not being sequestered to operating solely at night lends you some advantages over us. Our little… encounter last night was illuminating. You had knowledge I lacked—”

“And then fucking stole from my goddamn car,” Gavin interjected, but Nines wasn’t done and wasn’t about to be interrupted. 

“—and I believe we should assist one another as opposed to leaving each other to our own devices,” he finished, acting for all the world like Gavin hadn’t said anything at all. Nines blinked slowly, running a pink slip of a tongue along his bottom lip to wet it. “It would be a big help if you would be open to collaborating. You clearly want to find the culprit and I…” 

He averted his eyes and let it trail off there. He crossed his arms and drummed his fingers on his thick bicep. The pleather strained against the tense muscle. Gavin let himself stare. Only for a moment though. He rested his arm on the table in front of him and leaned forward. He could smell the left out details like yesterday’s trash. 

“And what if I say no?” Gavin asked, lifting a brow when Nines glanced at him with something like surprise on his stony face. “What? Didn’t consider that? Y’know, for a vampire you’re not very charismatic. Why the fuck should I let you help me? I’ve already got you in the precinct. All it’d take is me going out there and saying this prostitute—” 

“Not a prostitute,” Nines interjected.

“Not my fucking problem. Saying this  _ prostitute  _ is withholding information pertinent to a major homicide case, and then letting them throw you behind bars until you tell me anything else I need to know,” he finished. “Honey, you can say you aren’t a hooker ‘til you lose your voice, but with you dressed like that and me armed with this—” He plucked his badge from his hip and waved it in the air, “—I can already tell you which of us they’re gonna believe. I highly doubt you’re gonna pull that scary freak face out again in a room full of cops with guns. You stopped me, but somethin’ tells me you can’t stop them all.”

Nines narrowed his eyes. His nostrils flared slightly. He let go of his hands beneath the table and brought them to the surface, resting them on the tabletop so he could lean forward and meet Gavin halfway. “It says something about you that you think you’re the one in control here,” he replied silkily. Sharp though too. Like silk draped over the edge of a razor. “It really, really does. I just told you how far reaching my ilk is. Are you under some impression that we  _ picked  _ you for this role? That out of every single officer who could possibly assist me in this case, that  _ you  _ were uniquely suited to finding the killer?” 

The barest hint of a smile cut its way onto Nines’s pale lips. Gavin stopped breathing. Slowly, so slowly that Gavin felt every inch the mouse being toyed with by a cat, Nines leaned back in his chair. “You asked me something last night,” the vampire said, staring at Gavin with those intense, bloodchilling blue eyes. “Do you remember what it was?”

Gavin’s mouth was dry. He curled his hands into loose fists on the tabletop in front of him. He did. He nodded. 

“Tell me.”

“I asked,” Gavin said slowly, “if you were going to kill me.”

“I was going to.” Nines admitted it easily, like it was nothing. To a creature like him, it probably was. “I had brought you back with me to do just that. You knew too much, saw too much. But I made the decision not to. I saw the potential in what I came here tonight asking for. I came here,” he said, “on my own. I didn’t inform my superiors, but that hardly means they don’t already know.”

Gavin had a feeling he knew where this was going. Part of him was scared. Another part of him was… frustrated. That was probably the word. Frustrated and annoyed at what was essentially a massive clusterfuck of politics occuring behind his back and over his head with little care to how he felt about the matter. 

“So,” he said dryly, “that’s how it is.”

“I’d tell you it’s nothing personal, but you did just threaten to have the  _ prostitute  _ thrown behind bars a moment ago.” Nines gave a dainty sort of shrug and looked off at the wall. “I’m not threatening you with death if you don’t comply, Officer Reed. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m merely informing you that after your involvement last night, your scent has already been caught by the killer. If you keep investigating as you have been, it’s only a matter of time until my superiors intervene. One of the two will come for you before long, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say you would be safest under my protection when that inevitably happens.” 

His eyes smoothly slid back to Gavin. “I’m not telling you to trust me or even to like me. Just that if you wish to keep living past this week, you’d do well to work with me to catch whoever is responsible for all the deaths you keep stumbling upon.”

All in all that was a pretty speech. Of course, maybe it was just Nines who made it pretty. Gavin lifted his hands and kneaded at his eyes, dragging his hands down his face as he blinked tiredly at the white wall across from him. On a whim he glanced at the one-way mirror to the side. He frowned, not sure what he was expecting when he didn’t see Nines’s reflection at all. 

What a fucking night. Either help catch a vampiric killer and make his career or get ripped to pieces by half a dozen different vampires for sticking his nose in it to begin with. He laughed despite himself, shocking Nines into emoting if only a little. 

“I guess I’ve just got one question then.”

Nines lifted a brow. “And what could that be?” he asked, finally looking something other than well-coiffed. 

Gavin felt the corner of his lip curl upwards. He leaned over the table, chin propped on his fist. “When do we start?”


	6. Chapter 6

The building the Enforcers operated out of looked better on the outside than it did on the inside. 

Nines wasn’t quite sure why that was. Funding maybe, or just the council’s general lack of trust in them made the facade outside look professional while the inside just looked like unrepentant garbage. It echoed their organization a little too well, that discrepancy. One didn’t need a history lesson on their clan to know that the Enforcers were ragtag on a good night and barely wrangled chaos on a bad one. 

Nines pushed through the dingy, chipped doors and entered the main office, a small section of a building that shared tenantship with an abandoned law firm on the first floor and what varied between a meth lab and bat belfry depending on the week on the floor above. The floors, once hardwood and polished to a pristine shine, had been scuffed and stained to hell and back. The doors creaked on unoiled hinges. The conversation he’d picked up on through the door stopped instantly at the sound— Well, perhaps that was too kind an association. It stopped because they noticed Nines. 

All eyes turned to look at him. Nines tried not to blink.

He knew these faces and he knew their names, but even after a decade or more of working together, Nines’s entrance still failed to inspire anything warm. 

Perhaps that was due in part to the shoddiness of the building. An insistent draft blew through the room constantly, whistling softly in the silence. But then again, that was probably more wishful thinking on his part. Nines let the door close behind him, and he tried hard to ignore the eyes locked on him. There were a lot of people in here tonight. Something was making them work overtime. 

Nines looked at the vampire closest to him. James was seated in his battered looking desk, pouring over files with his ancient typewriter in front of him, tapping away at the keys with crooked, gnarled fingers. The sound of the rusted mechanisms was akin to nails on a chalkboard. When they hardly had the funds for paper let alone computers, Nines wasn’t sure who to blame for subjecting them to the noise. 

“I’m here to see the chief,” Nines said quietly, knowing James heard. His fingers paused over his keys, hesitating just long enough to give him away. 

James lifted his head and blew at a long lock of red hair that hung limply over his forehead. His lips curled into a frown at the sight of Nines standing by the door. “She’s in her office,” he said, voice thick with an accent Nines had never been able to identify. Something English, something gnarled. James was on the older side and didn’t like it when people pried into his past. “What’s she got you here for this time? Gonna gut a few more of us? Get yourself a new haven for your trouble?”

Nines just averted his eyes and turned towards the chief’s office. He didn’t have time to deal with this. He didn’t have the breath to tell them how wrong they were to think what he did made him better than them in any way. If they saw his current haven maybe they’d lay off. Of course, that would involve them being willing to come over and see it. Which they weren’t. They’d made that abundantly clear. 

“Oi, don’t ignore me!” James shouted, but Nines knew better than to turn around. “Fuckin’ rich brats. Think you’re better than us!”

Nines just kept walking, even as more voices rose up to jeer at him. No one liked Internal Affairs. No one. 

That realization had come to Nines quite fast after his change. He’d been thrown into this role, gifted it by his brother’s sire. Connor had thought it would be good for him. The next best thing, he’d said, to how things should have been. He’d be respected, Connor had promised, eyes dancing with pity and faith. 

“It’s better than being a grunt,” he’d told Nines, clasping his arms in his hands. “You deserve better than that.”

_ Yeah, well, I deserve better than  _ this, Nines thought morosely, wincing as someone grew ballsy enough to pelt him with a balled up piece of paper. It bounced off Nines’s shoulder and hit the floor. He kept walking. The chief’s office was just up ahead. 

He would never forgive himself for letting Connor get his hopes up. He didn’t blame Connor for this; Connor was always hopeful, always optimistic. He had truly believed this would be better than letting Nines start at the bottom rung of the bottom of society, and… and maybe in some ways it was. Nines didn’t have to deal with many of the other Enforcers often. He was left to his own devices more or less, and he was trusted by those in power to do as he was told, and to do it well. Investigating his fellow clanmates wasn’t… ideal. It was bound to breed distrust and hatred towards him. That was the nature of the job.

But then again, Nines had always been alone. So, what did it matter? 

He asked himself that very question as he knocked on the chief’s door, just as he always did when he was told to come to the main offices. He’d be alone again soon enough. He’d have a new case in hand and a new reason for being for however long the investigation lasted this time around. Never long enough, but that was the job. That was just his life now. 

The call to enter wasn’t loud. It didn’t have to be. Nines heard it through the thick wood of the door, and he twisted the knob in his hand and braced himself for the— 

_ Screech! _

The floor was warped right beneath the chief’s door. Opening it took muscle, and it always drew attention. Lucky for Nines he’d already had an audience coming in. His tamped down his discomfort and shoved the door open. He entered the office and then yanked hard, smothering a wince when it made its protests be known once more. 

The Chief Inspector cut quite an impressive figure against the backdrop of her office, an equally impressive feat given the office in question was just as shitty as the rest of the building outside of it. If Nines had to guess, he’d say the office used to be a large storage closet. It had no windows and the high ceilings were crumbling into dust. Small piles of broken and chipped plaster speckled the floor and corners of the room. Some was still falling now, sprinkling down like snow from the vibrations he’d made forcing open the door. 

If the mess bothered the chief, she didn’t let it show. Her shoulders were set in a firm line, made all the more disapproving by the pressed lines of her sharp blazer and muted colors of her headwrap. Nines had never seen her without it, without her chin held high, her jaw tight, her body wound tight like a tiger always ready to pounce. Her dark eyes locked onto Nines the moment he turned into her room. They were a blinding shade of orange, a fact that only strengthened the feeling of being prey before a predator. 

“Lock the door behind you,” Chief Inspector Rodalia ordered in lieu of a greeting. No smile split her lips. Just expectation. Just marked and heavy expectation that stifled Nines even as he did as he was told. 

Chief Inspector Rodalia had held her position for longer than Nines had been alive. She’d evidently come to Detroit back at the start of the twentieth century and quickly climbed the ranks after establishing herself as a cutthroat, clever, and above all  _ loyal  _ pursuer of justice in any form that may take. Nines turned towards her and approached the desk carefully, his steps slowed under the weight of her stare. The details of her life before Detroit weren’t common knowledge. A lot of vampires kept such things a secret, but if you looked closely enough you could usually find traces of  _ something  _ beneath the projected personas. 

For the chief, the details were meager. They hid in the teasing threads of an accent that only came out when she was pissed or spitting threats, an accent redolent of New Orleans and southern drawls. They lilted beneath the surface of her carefully constructed mien when she finished speaking to one of the higher ups. Usually a Luminary. Always someone above Nines’s pay grade.

“Take a seat,” she said coolly, gesturing at the chair in front of her desk with a hand sporting nails too long to bring a person any measure of comfort. They glistened a shiny crimson when she steepled her fingers. She must have gotten them painted recently. “We have matters to discuss.”

Nines inclined his head and did as he was told. He sat down and folded his hands in his lap, feeling like a child sent to the principal’s office for rough housing at recess. He tried not to fidget. “What sort of matters?” he asked, choosing to stare at her nails instead of meeting her gaze. The red stood out brilliantly against her dark skin. It didn’t feel safer to look at. It just felt… better. 

But then Rodalia’s hands were moving. They cut through the air and settled on a thin file situated on the desk. With a flick of her wrist the inspector sent it skidding across the wood and towards Nines. He leaned forward, snatching it from the edge before it could topple over. 

“This,” she said, tone clipped, voice brisk, “is your next case.”

Ah. Alright. He wasn’t in trouble then. He’d never been in trouble before, so it really should stop being the first thing to come to mind when he looked at his cellphone and saw the blinking message of a summons first thing upon waking up. “There isn’t much in here,” he observed, opening the folder to glance at the contents inside. “What is it this time? Espionage? Illegal hunting?” There were pictures of corpses in here. Nines let out a quiet sigh. He looked up at his boss. Something told him it was something worse. 

The good thing about Rodalia was that she wasn’t fun of run around. She didn’t make Nines wait or stew. In clear, focused tones she said, “There’s a scandal brewing. Humans are turning up dead and the police are getting involved. I want you to investigate it and figure out who is responsible.”

“Is that really the sort of case for Internal Affairs?” Nines asked, furrowing his brow. 

Rodalia raised a thin eyebrow. “It is when I say it is.”

Nines frowned. He took a closer look at the file in his lap. 

The file was comprised of exactly seven pieces of paper, a far cry from the usual twenty plus he normally got when handed a file from the inspector herself. Four of the pages were photographs of corpses. All human, three women and one man, and by the way they were dressed he assumed they were prostitutes or something similar. Nines quickly scanned the three other pages. A few autopsy reports with creases and stains. Probably provided by one of the Cultists. Some of the other Enforcers had informants for things like that. It probably meant this case had originally been handled by someone else before being passed onto him.

It was safe to assume then that the evidence pointed towards someone or some group in particular. Towards someone or something that Rodalia knew better than to trust the rank and file to handle.

Nines looked at the chief and raised a brow. “Do you have any recommendations on where I should look first?” He always worded it carefully when it was a case like this. She knew what her own suspicions were, but she probably wasn’t in any position to be pointing fingers without more evidence to back it up. 

Rodalia leaned back in her seat, sucking on her fangs thoughtfully. “No,” she said succinctly. “It’s best to keep an open mind.”

So, any of the upper clans then. Right. That didn’t give him much to go on. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Nines carefully situated the scant pages back into the file folder, lining them up with the spine until they were perfectly straight. Rodalia’s eyes were a heavy weight on him. She didn’t need to blink much, and she made use of the talent. 

“If you successfully complete this without drawing too much attention to yourself, we can see about granting you some new privileges.” She said it without an ounce of warmth. Then, her lips curled upwards, exposing her fangs. “I’m sure that would make you and that brother of yours very happy.”

He really, really hoped that was just her way of being supportive and not a subtle indication of where he should begin his investigation. He nodded, sitting a bit stiffer than he had been before. “I won’t let you down,” he said, glancing at her to see if he could leave. These visits rarely lasted long. Rodalia didn’t like having him come down to the office like this. It stirred up the others, spreading paranoia and panic that he was investigating another one of their own. 

_ “You’re bad for morale,”  _ Rodalia had told him his first day on the job.  _ “So don’t get comfortable here. You work alone.” _

He told her that was fine; that he liked it better that way. Then, he’d told Connor that too up until he stopped answering his brother’s calls. It was better not to let anyone see how alone he felt these days. Especially… 

Especially when there was nothing anyone could do to make it better.

Chief Inspector Rodalia held his gaze for a moment, then nodded her head. Nines stood up and quickly made his way to the exit. 

“Speaking of your brother,” she called out before Nines could reach the door. It had him freezing midstep, hand resting impotently against the door frame, the lock staring at him as if to say  _ you can’t run just yet. _ He slowly looked over his shoulder. Rodalia had her arm propped on the desk, her cheek resting on her closed fist. “He called me again last night. He’s getting much more insistent in his belief that I’m keeping you from him.”

Nines’s jaw tensed. His fingers dented the thin cardstock housing the file. “And?” he said, voice as brittle as he felt under his skin. Brittle and ill-fitting. Like he might shatter at the slightest touch. 

“And,” Rodalia said, narrowing her eyes, “I don’t enjoy being called a liar. Not when I didn’t lie, and not when we both know I’ve done nothing of the sort. Speak to him before he marches down here himself to yell at me to my face. I don’t need to tell you how…  _ unhappy  _ I’d be if it came to that.”

“He won’t do that,” Nines said, letting his gaze fall to the ground. It was dusty in here too. Not as much as it was just outside the door, but still. Even their leader wasn’t immune to the grime this place housed so proudly. “I know Connor. He wouldn’t do that.”

Rodalia looked at him with pity. The points of her fangs teased her bottom lip when she scoffed, “Don’t test him just to see if you’re right. I’m not your fucking nanny, so stop acting like I’ll mediate your family squabbles for you. You’re dismissed, Nines.” She lifted her chin just enough to free her hand, flicking her fingers at him. The move wasn’t dismissive. It looked threatening. “Report in your progress before the week is out. Don’t disappoint me.”

_ Don’t disappoint me.  _ That was how she always left their little talks, their little meetings. With a flick of her fingers, the averting of her eyes, and a quick, clipped,  _ Don’t disappoint me.  _

Nines swung his head towards the door, flicked open the lock, and twisted the handle, pushing hard to get it over the warped floorboard in one try. He didn’t flinch this time at the noise it made. He just kept his head down and closed it behind him, cold in a new way and...  _ empty  _ in a way he’d been for a while now. Nines tucked the file under his arm and walked back through the sea of desks and chairs and dingy, broken equipment. 

A whistle sounded behind him. “The dog got his new bone?”

“Hey, shove off,” another said, a dull smack echoing as someone hit someone else. The voice lowered, but not enough. “You want it to be you he comes after next? They’ll find your hide over in Canada! In _pieces!”_

This wasn’t want he wanted. None of this was what he wanted. Nines bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and shoved open the door at the end of the room. He’d solve this case and see what it got him. He’d solve the next and wait for the same. Something had to change. Something had to give. 

Nines couldn’t keep living like this, hated and alone just for the part he played in a system he hadn’t meant to enter like this. One mistake was costing him a lifetime of agony. It wasn’t... 

It wasn’t  _ fair.  _

The door closed behind him. 

The whispers still followed him out just as coldly as they’d welcomed him in. 

—

The car door opened and closed with a harsh clatter as Gavin slid into the driver’s seat. A burst of cold air ruffled Nines’s fringe, reminding him of where, and  _ when, _ he was. He blinked and sat a little straighter, breathing in an unnecessary breath that strained the seatbelt still locked over his chest. He’d put it on the moment he’d gotten into the vehicle. It—and breathing—felt instinctive in a sense. It was what a person did. They buckled their seat belt. They breathed. They tried their best to stay alive even when that wasn’t much of a challenge anymore.

“God, it’s fucking cold out there,” Gavin blustered, smacking the snow off his shoulders after he shoved his thermos of coffee into the cupholder near Nines’s elbow. “Fucking Tina and her goddamn bullshit.” He looked squarely at Nines as he shoved his key into the ignition. His hand was shaking from the cold. “Remind me to buy her a fuckin’ donut or some shit before we call this a night. Fuckin’ bitch has me by the balls for all this shift swapping.”

Nines blinked. And then there was this new development. This…  _ colorful  _ development, and Nines wasn’t referring to the wind-swept pink of the officer’s cheeks. The car engine turned over. Cold air blasted them both from the air vents. Gavin Reed swore loudly and threw his hands out to divert the vents until they blew elsewhere. The radio was off. The car was conspicuously quiet but for their breathing. Gavin’s loud, Nines’s performative. 

“Uh, so…” came Gavin’s voice after the quiet turned more awkward than ominous. He shifted in his seat, the faux leather creaking beneath him. “Where we going first, Dracula?”

“Don’t call me that,” Nines said instinctively. He turned his head and looked out the passenger side window. The parking lot of the police department was dark and strewn with snow, empty but for the few lone cars that remained this late at night. It was lonely out there. Lonely and cold. He bit down on his lip, then released it. “I have a name and I know you know how to use it.”

“Yeesh, sorry. So, no joking about the actual monster sitting in my car,” Gavin muttered, shifting the car into reverse. “Alright. Cool. Great. Got it.”

“You’re scared of me.”

Gavin let out a snort and threw his arm behind Nines’s seat, twisting around to look behind him as he backed out of the parking lot. The heat of his arm burned the back of Nines’s neck. He was the warmest thing in the car right now. “No shit, Sherlock,” he said, untwisting himself once they were out of the lot and facing the main road. He shifted into drive. “Now, tell me where the fuck we’re going. We’re burning moonlight.”

Nines pursed his lips, but didn’t push the point. He hadn’t done a great job in projecting a non-threatening air before, so he should expect anything else.  _ Even if they would be working together closely, _ he thought to himself. “Take us to the scene of the crime, the one that took place before the murder that occurred in the playground.” First things first didn’t include making friends with the human police officer that may not survive the case. All Nines needed to focus on was seeing if there was evidence of purging at other scenes. 

A hand reached for the thermos. Gavin pulled out of the parking lot and headed south, taking a long, grounding drink of his coffee. He smacked his lips once he was finished and put it back in the cupholder. “That’d be at the old factory,” he said, drumming his fingers on the wheel. The air in the car was slowly beginning to heat up. Gavin stopped shivering. 

“You really have been paying a lot of attention to this case.”

Gavin glanced at him, then put his eyes back on the road. “Well, yeah,” he mumbled. “It happened in my patrol route. I’m gonna take notice of shit like that. And anyway, you said before you knew more about whatever it is that’s doing this. You gotta fill me in if you’re expecting me to help.”

“There’s… a lot to fill you in on,” Nines admitted. He let his hands slip beneath his arms, covering his exposed stomach from sight. They’d had trouble getting out of the precinct before. That detective, the one who gave Nines his number, had thrown a fit when Gavin said he was taking Nines home. 

_ “He has no coat!” the detective had said, bearing down on Gavin with every ounce of fatherly concern he could summon up. _

_ “Trust me,” Gavin snorted, pushing Nines out the door. “He doesn’t need one.” _

It was strange to have someone care. Unnecessary, sure, but… It’d been a very long time since anyone had acted that way towards Nines. He sighed. “I suppose I should start by telling you what I was told when I was…” Not turned. He’d been alone then. Nines grinded down hard on his back molars. “When I was given my orientation. There are seven clans you need to be made aware of.” 

Gavin snorted at the wording and Nines didn’t blame him for that.  _ Clans  _ came off so archaic these days, out of vogue like most of the structures they still operated within. Nines pressed his forehead against the cold glass of the window. 

“Each occupies a certain level of standing. There are those at the top and those at the bottom. Each vampire is locked into their social standing as soon as they are created. It’s just… You’re just stuck whether you like it or not.”

“Really. Where are you in all that? You some kind of hot shot vampire lord?” 

Nines glanced at Gavin. He was focused on the road, on the thin sheets of black ice lurking beneath the glare cast by the street lights. “No. I’m… towards the bottom,” he said, proud that he didn’t shake as he said it. “My clan doesn’t have a formal name. We’re just known as Enforcers.”

Gavin tore his eyes off the road to look at him a little. “What do you enforce?”

“The rules the other clans set down for the rest of us to follow,” he said simply. “Hunting rotations, fledgling creation, making sure no one is flaunting themselves in ways that might… draw attention. Take the next left here, it’s faster,” he said, clearing his throat. What he was doing right now was drawing attention. 

The car dutifully followed the instruction. “What do you do if you find people steppin’ out of line?”

Nines didn’t even blink. “We take care of it,” he said simply. “We kill them.”

Silence. Nines wasn’t sure why he expected anything else to follow. The digital clock on the dashboard ticked forward three minutes. The officer cleared his throat a little. The leather squeaked as he shifted once more. 

“Maybe you should give me a rundown on the rest of it all too,” Gavin murmured, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. At first look it seemed random, but then Nines paid more attention. He could hear Gavin’s heartbeat. The percussive taps fell in time to it, rabbit fast and just a bit stressed. “Sparknotes version now, obviously, but the rest later. It uh… It seems like there’s a lot I don’t know. About how you all operate.”

_ That is an understatement, _ Nines thought dryly. He licked at his lips and pushed off of the window. Gavin flinched the moment he did. He tried to cover it, but there was no hiding the lurch in his heartbeat or the scent of his nervous sweat filling the small space. Nines told himself to ignore it. He cleared his throat. He faced forward and pushed on and pretended it didn’t rankle that Gavin’s coffee settled him more than Nines’s continued peaceful presence.

“Like I said, there are seven clans. Several of them used to be powerful and influential but no longer are. It’s… vastly political, and I won’t bore you with the details right now.” He looked down and curled his fingers through the thin belt around his waist. He ran his finger along the narrow edge. “At the top of it all are the Luminaries. They’re—”

Gavin let out a loud guffaw of laughter. 

“Excuse me?” Nines asked sharply, shooting a hard glare at the man currently bent over his steering wheel in a way that he’d think a police officer would know was unsafe. “Is there something funny about that?”

“Are you fuckin’ serious?” Gavin burst, smacking his own thigh as he pushed himself upright just in time to avoid swerving into the curb. “What kind of self-righteous circle-jerk names themselves the fuckin’  _ Luminaries?” _

A face flickered behind Nines’s eyes. Dark hair, eyes as penetrating as a vivisection, and a smile as slow and eventual as winter’s onslaught itself. Then another right after. Only, this face looked far more familiar. Connor’s face. Nines kneaded at his eyes until the visage vanished. “Please take this seriously,” he muttered. “We really don’t have time for you to belittle my organization  _ and  _ solve a murder at the same time.”

Gavin waved his hand at him and then moved it to his chin, dragging down his scruffy face as he smothered the remains of his mirth. Nines waited a beat and figured that was permission to continue. 

“As I was saying,” he shot. “The Luminaries sit at the top of the social pyramid. They’re the old blood. Established. Tied to the land and to businesses and corporations.” Nines sucked bitterly on his teeth. Those faces were back. A pain was forming in his stomach. He sucked in a breath and said, “They keep to themselves, but everyone kowtows to them. They have a lot of bad habits. They make a lot of promises that don’t mean anything. That they don’t keep.”

“So, like every other rich bastard in this city then.” Gavin shrugged a shoulder, nodding at Nines. “Alright. Luminaries, easy enough. What’s next?”

Nines’s voice left him in a hiss, almost in a rush to move on. “Next are the Nicciave, I suppose, but I wouldn’t consider them prolific or popular. They used to be. A while ago they used to be very influential, but these days they are more or less just information sponges. They gather secrets and push agendas. They are…” He clicked his tongue. “They are dangerous.” He glanced at Gavin. “If you thought my compulsion was powerful, you would be mistaken. A Nicciave could destroy your mind with just a look if they wanted to.”

He could practically hear the blood rushing from Gavin’s face. The car slowed and came to a stop in front of a lone red light. They were nearing the crime scene. Eddies of snow skidded and swirled across the dark streets in front of them. Gavin’s fingers were pale around the steering wheel. “Alright,” he said quietly, tensely. “Let’s avoid them in that case.”

Knowing those like Lucretia, Nines didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t as simple as that. He didn’t nod or agree. He just moved on once the street light turned green. 

“On equal standing, or maybe just above the Nicciave, are the Triarii,” he said quietly. Of these he only knew a few. They weren’t as common these days as they used to be. To be honest, most clans were rather thin these days. They were all fleeing the larger cities and making do on their own. “If the Nicciave are more intellectually inclined, the Triarii are the physical side of things. They are… almost unreasonably strong. They used to be of a higher standing in the past. They don’t do much these days beyond serve as added protection and muscle for certain groups. I suppose they may have their own plans and machinations, but we rarely have issues with them anymore.”

“Preps, nerds, jocks,” Gavin muttered under his breath. He glanced at Nines a little and then looked back forward. “Guess that makes you the goth?”

_ “Next,”  _ Nines said sternly, ignoring all of that—God, this man had the maturity of a child sometimes, “is my own clan. We don’t come from some carefully curated bloodline like some of the others. We are…” He grimaced, resting his arm on the armrest to rest his head on his hand. “We’re what pop-culture was built off of. The rogue hunters in the night that prey on random passersby. We’re hunters by nature. They couldn’t quell our numbers or control us, so they decided to give us a role instead. We aren’t afforded many luxuries. We do our jobs or we’re culled.”

There was no witty remark about that. No clever quip or teasing joke. Gavin kept his eyes forward and let his heartbeat do the talking for him. It stuttered, then slowed. Nines could smell the pity wafting off him. He cleared his throat of it, feeling stifled. 

“The last few clans are the Cultists, the Loremasters, and the Charlatans,” he said quickly. These three didn’t matter much. They hadn’t in awhile, if they ever mattered much at all. “They operate at the lowest rungs of our society, and are the least common to see or be made these days.”

The officer’s lips puckered at the word  _ made.  _ “Am I gonna need to stock up on holy water for these Cultists?” Gavin asked, prying a hand from the wheel to rub at his temples. “Wait, are these guys the cult that got up to shit a couple decades ago?”

“Not that kind of cultist, and no. They’re daywalkers. Scientific monstrosities that decided to experiment on themselves until they devised  _ cures  _ to our shared affliction.” He’d asked Rooney one time if he’d found satisfying his curiosity worth the physical alterations. He’d just stared back at him in confusion, not understanding what Nines had asked him. “They don’t… They don’t look like I do. Like we do. They’re disgusting. Dirty. Even being around them can make you sick.”

Nines ran his thumb over the seat belt strap again. “They arose when plagues were around, and they still carry traces of it inside them. A human like you would get sick just by standing next to one. You’d die if they tried to bite you. They’re few in number these days for a reason.”

Gavin hissed out a breath. He could probably see why. 

“The Loremasters are what the name implies. Though, that’s not their official name. We just call them that. They come from some library from the old world, burnt down during some war a thousand years ago. It made them value knowledge and the finite nature of it, so they carry our history and the history of the world inside their heads.”

“Doesn’t sound very…” Gavin pondered the word. “Very edgy. Vampires should be edgy.”

That earned Gavin another eye roll. “Well, they’ve never been prolific or popular by our standards either. They’re kept around because of the Luminaries.” Nines wrinkled his nose. “They enjoy having their stories told. I’m pretty sure they would’ve died off if not for vanity’s sake.”

“More nerds,” Gavin said under his breath. He cleared his throat. Louder, he asked, “And the last one?”

The last one… “I don’t actually know much about the Charlatans,” he admitted. He looked out the window ahead of him and watched the street lights flicker by. The flashes of light made up for the stars he couldn’t see. “They aren’t much of anything anymore. If they had a presence in this city, they don’t any longer. From what I’ve heard and been told, they were thought of as dangerous way back when. They had unpredictable powers.”

A lot of things had changed after The Fall. A lot of things hadn’t been thought of as worth remembering. Nines wasn’t old enough to know himself. Much of their history changed a few hundred years ago. It wasn’t the sort of thing spoken about anymore. 

Nines licked at his lips. “I think… I think they may have been hunted down.”

“Well, that’s just peachy keen,” Gavin said wryly, pulling into a lone parking lot. 

“I never said it was pleasant,” he replied stiffly. He unbuckled his seat belt preemptively. “The easy summary of it all is that the Luminaries are in charge and the rest of us are pawns. The Nicciave try to move pieces themselves to stay off the game board, the Triarii push and shove and do what they can with what they have, and my group just tries to stay useful so we aren’t left out to catch a last sunrise.” Nines sat up straight and put his hand on the door, just waiting for the car to stop so he could get out. “We use the Cultists as medical examiners sometimes, but aside from that the rest hardly matter.”

Gavin peered out at the empty and derelict lot as he drove around the building, an old factory long abandoned and in the midst of falling to pieces. A chain link fence ran the perimeter of the site. “You were right,” Gavin said after a moment of silence. The car cut tracks in the snow as it headed towards the rear entrance to the factory. 

“Was I?”

“Yep. That sounds like a steaming pile of bullshit. Here I was thinking immortality would be a sweet gig, but you still have to sift through all that? Fucked up that you get locked into some societal plan just ‘cause you were unlucky enough to get, uh, bitten? Sucked on? I don’t fuckin’ know, whatever it is, by some low life vampire with shit blood.”

Nines’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He stared down at his boots, fingers digging into his thighs through the denim of his jeans. “It is,” he said quietly. 

Especially when you were promised better.  

Silence took over as Gavin drove around, finding the right area to stop. The whirl of the heaters, the crunch of snow beneath the tires… It was the loudest thing in the car until Gavin slowed down and put the car in park once they were as close to the chained off industrial field as they could physically get. His grey eyes met Nines’s through the dark of the car. “We’re here. You got a plan?”

Nines shrugged. He cleared his throat and made himself find his voice. “I have some things I’d like to look for. Can you take me to where the body was found?” It wobbled a little. He didn’t think Gavin noticed. 

Gavin nodded and twisted around in his seat, putting his knees on the leather to fish around in the back seat of his car for… for something. Nines couldn’t quite bring himself to think too hard on it. Gavin’s twisting body pressed roughly against his shoulder in a hot, molten wave of heat that seared him down to the bone. Nines clenched down on his jaw and inched away, shivering violently. Humans were always so warm. So painfully warm. 

“Where is it… Ah, there you are, fuckin’ tease,” Gavin muttered, falling back into his seat with a flashlight in hand. His hair was a little mussed, but he looked pleased with himself. He shoved the flashlight into his pocket and zipped up his coat. Nines couldn’t help but note that it fit Gavin much better than it had fit him when he’d gotten to wear it. “Alright, let’s go.” He snatched the keys out of the ignition and tossed them into his pocket too. “Let’s make this fast though, alright? It’s too cold to be wandering around all night.”

Nines opened the door and stepped out into the dark. Maybe for Gavin it was, but for him it felt… not good, not fine, but bearable. His sense of temperature had been ruined the moment he turned. The cold wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t pleasant, but it didn’t bother him. He closed the car door and heard Gavin’s echo the sound a second later. The car beeped as it was locked. 

“Lead the way,” he said, nodding towards Gavin. 

The flashlight clicked on. “This way then,” the officer said, taking off into the darkness ahead. 

Nines had only visited this place after the body had been taken away and the ground grown cold once more. It’d been a cursory search on his part; the factory was a fair distance from his haven and he could only travel so far on foot before needing to turn back else risk being caught out after sunrise. The fence around the perimeter was high, topped with barbed wire that had long since rusted into jagged points. It barred the way into the industrial field. Thankfully the body had been found on the inside of it, so they wouldn’t need to go scaling any fences tonight. 

“The body was found around here,” Gavin said, using the beam of his flashlight to trace out the general shape of where the body one laid. They were standing a fair distance behind the looming factory warehouse, in the middle of a dried out field. Too far from the road to be seen, too close to the building to go unnoticed for more than a day or two. The beam cut higher, skimming over the ground. “There, there, and around… here, I think, was where we found blood spatter, pieces of clothing, shit like that. It’s all written up in the files you fuckin’ stole from me—”

“You let me read them,” Nines muttered, getting sick of that attitude. Gavin was so desperate to play the victim when he’d been pawing at him and fondling him plenty enough to make his cries of foul weaken considerably. 

“Well, I also let you take me home with you and then you thought about killing me, so, yeah,” the man huffed back, clouds of mist emphasizing his frustration. He scowled as he stomped across the frozen grass, flashlight beam swinging as he went. “The fuck are we looking for anyway? Shit that wasn’t in the files? Special vampire tracks?”

Nines didn’t fight the change in topic. He didn’t want to fight at all. He narrowed his eyes and felt them shift, his pupils dilating until the world around him came into clear focus. “First, turn off your flashlight,” he said, falling into a loose crouch. “You’ll mess up my night vision like you did last time.”

“Oh, well, excuse fuckin’ me for having weak mortal eyes,” Gavin snorted, dutifully clicking the flashlight off. His footsteps crunched loudly as he came up behind Nines. “Seriously though. What are we looking for? I know you think the human cops are incompetent, but we aren’t stupid enough to leave obvious evidence behind.”

“I didn’t say you were,” he answered, creeping along the ground, sniffing loudly for any scent of stale blood. It was so cold out here. That might have preserved the evidence, freezing the blood before it could sink too deeply into the ground. The last puddle had been some distance away. If he were the killer, where would he go? Which direction would he take to leave, and where would he stumble, voiding his meal?

Gavin grunted pointedly behind him. Right. “We’re looking for a stain on the ground,” he said finally, running his fingers over brittle, dry pieces of grass, feeling for evidence of footsteps. “At the playground, I discovered evidence of a vampire’s feeding, something that I believe was too far outside of what you and your forensic teams typically look for to be noted in your files.”

“A stain…”

Nines nodded. He wasn’t sure if Gavin could see well enough in the dark to help him look. “Yes,” he said allowed just to be sure, narrowing his eyes as he felt what seemed to be a footprint. He followed it towards the fence. Of course, the killer would likely have hopped it instead of going around the front of the factory building. It faced a main street. “I was working on a hunch when you stumbled upon me. If I find a stain here, it’ll just solidify my…”

“Solidify your what?” Gavin prompted when Nines didn’t go on. He crunched his way up to his side, looking down into the darkness. The hot line of his thigh burned against Nines’s shoulder. “You sniff something, Bloodhound?”

That wasn’t a funny joke. Nines would’ve told Gavin that—he had a feeling the man thought he was funnier than he actually was—but his attention was captured by the thin, barely-there whiffs of iron tickling his heightened senses. Nines fell onto all fours and bent the grass and dead weeds aside. It was around here, almost lost, but not quite just yet. 

“I think I’ve found it,” he spoke, feeling Gavin jump a little against his shoulder. He closed his eyes. “Please turn your flashlight back on and cup the beam in your hand. Look where I’m pointing, then turn the light out. Do you remember seeing something like this in any of your files, or maybe while at the crime scene when it was still fresh?”

Gavin did as he was told. The light went on with a click, and then the dull orange glow of it teased Nines through his eyelids. It stayed for a few seconds, then clicked back out. Nines opened his eyes. He reached out his fingers and pinched the dirt between them. 

“Just looks like a damp patch to me. Like someone poured out something dark in the ground and let it freeze. I don’t think I would’ve noticed.” Gavin looked around, judging the distance they’d walked from where the body had been found. “They wouldn’t have brought the dogs this far out, and I doubt anything less than that could’ve told us this was here. As far as I know, nothin’ like that made it into any of the f— Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck are you doing?”

Nines glanced up, tongue still out and pinched fingers hovering at his lips. He slowly lowered them. “I’m testing the residue,” he said critically. “You are aware that forensics and the identification of strange substances at a crime scene is paramount to learning what actually occurred there, right?”

Gavin looked at him like he had sprouted an extra set of ears. “Are you seriously lecturing me about proper police procedure as you stick rotten ground gunk in your mouth?” His voice was just a hiss, his eyes bugging out of his skull. 

Blinking slowly, Nines brought the fingers back up to his mouth and stuck them inside just to spite him. Gavin immediately let out a sound akin to a cat being drowned, throwing his hands into the air before turning around, muttering about wanting to vomit. Nines closed his eyes to concentrate, swirling the residue across his tongue. It was so faint, the taste. The remnants were nearly gone, nearly lost to time and the elements that had battered it since the murder. 

“How can someone with a face like that be so fucking nasty?” came a whisper on the breeze. It shattered Nines’s attention. He opened his eyes and saw Gavin had wandered off towards the fence, still muttering away. Something warm flickered in the pit of Nines’s stomach. He must not know he was still within earshot. 

It was the wrong thing to focus on right now. Gavin was… an asset. An asset to make this investigation easier. Nines rubbed his fingers together and sniffed at them again. It was so faint, but he was sure he tasted acid coating the back of his tongue. More purged blood, just like what he found at the other crime scene. 

“You taste something in there other than dirt?”

He looked up and saw that despite his aversion to his methods, Gavin had turned back around to watch him regardless. Nines cocked his head and shrugged. He licked at his lips and pondered the pattern they’d just confirmed— at least, confirmed as much as was possible. With the state of this crime scene, Nines knew that any purge piles from before it wouldn’t be viable for testing. He’d just have to operate under the assumption they existed. If only he’d found one sooner. Damnit. 

“Well?” Gavin led, coming back over. He was getting impatient. Probably from the cold. “What’d you find?”

“Blood that was ingested and then purged,” Nines explained quietly, his brow furrowing. “The fledgling that killed the victim didn’t leave with a meal. I don’t know why though. A sire could have intervened, but that doesn’t feel all that right given this is a repeated phenomenon.” 

Gavin’s boots crunched in the icy grass. He paused at Nines’s side, looking down at him. His face was flushed and windswept. “The fuck is a fledgling?” 

“A fledgling is a newly made vampire,” he said offhandedly, still rubbing the flakes of blood between his fingers. 

“And a sire?”

Nines dropped his hand and looked up at Gavin. “The one who turned them. An older vampire.”

“Ah. Okay. And what about all that isn’t jiving with you?” He shifted his weight from leg to leg, brushing Nines’s shoulder with his thigh. “Gotta remember I don’t know all your vamp lingo and what not.”

That was unfortunately true. It’d take more than just one car ride’s worth of summarizing to give Gavin the full picture of what was happening in this case. Nines sighed, then startled a little when a hand reached out to him. Gavin nodded upwards. Nines took his hand and let him help him to his feet. Gavin pulled away quickly. It was probably too cold out here for him to be touching Nines comfortably. 

“Ah. Thanks. It’s just… this purging business. It just doesn’t make sense to me,” Nines admitted, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead as he stared hard at the barely perceptible stain at his feet. “I found a similar stain at the playground murder. Finding this one too means this is something common that happens each time this vampire hunts.”

The officer nodded along. “Okay. And what’s weird about that? You guys don’t get food poisoning or something?”

That almost made Nines smile. He shook his head. “Purging isn’t easy. We don’t naturally do it unless there’s a reason for it. We don’t get sick.” Well, not unless there was a Cultist lurking nearby, but that was neither here nor there. “I’d thought at first that perhaps it was a hazing ritual, maybe even a punishment a sire would perform for botching a kill.”

Gavin’s teeth were starting to chatter. “But?”

_ “But,”  _ Nines went on, “why wait until the victim was drained dry to punish them? If you were trying to teach a fledgling control, then why let them go this far? Why let them keep repeating the same process night after night? Purging isn’t pleasant, but I doubt it’d be unpleasant enough to quell any sort of bloodthirst for long.”

“So… we’ve got a bulimic vampire on our hands?” Gavin guessed. “I don’t know why you’re so fixated on there being external forces behind all this. None of the evidence we’ve found suggests there’s another person present during the murders.”

Nines frowned. “That’s not indicative of there  _ not  _ being someone else present.”

Gavin cocked his head. He couldn’t hide how cold he was. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet in his struggle to stay warm. “I know; I’m offerin’ up my own fuckin’ insight. I don’t know what the fuck a sire does, but if they’re supposed to be some kind of teacher-slash-parental figure, like, sorry to burst your bubble, but there are shitty teachers in the world, and deadbeat parents too.”

“That’s not how it’s supp—”

“Supposed to go, sure,” Gavin interrupted. He looked hard at Nines and kept going. “But that doesn’t stop people from being shitty, now does it? I know you may think all sires are responsible, but clearly in this case one wasn’t.”

Nines didn’t say anything to that. His lips pressed into a thin line, his hands curling tightly into fists at his sides. He couldn’t even argue that Gavin was wrong to think that, that every sire was good and nurturing. They weren’t. The entire Enforcer bloodline was predicated on the idea of absent sires and guideless fledglings. He supposed… Nines supposed he had wanted to think better of others. That his own situation was an anomaly, not the default. 

“How often do you vamps need to feed?” Gavin had started to walk around, pacing back and forth with his hands shoved under his armpits. It broke Nines from his thoughts better than anything else. He wasn’t alone right now. It wasn’t the time to be ruminating. 

“A fledgling only needs to feed… every other day, perhaps,” Nines figured, eyes following Gavin steadily. 

If he were hunting the police officer, he’d note the pattern he took in his fervor. The way his breath clouded the air, the scent of his discomfort and how it bloomed around him, exacerbated by the movement. Nines swallowed. He was getting wound up just watching the human go, which was almost as bad as ruminating in terms of things he shouldn’t be doing right now. He cleared his throat and went on. 

“Daily is preferable, but not necessary. Usually not possible either given the feeding methods assigned to the lower bloodlines. If you fed daily you’d need much less. It doesn’t leave our systems all that fast if we aren’t exerting ourselves.”

“Alright, well, the murders keep happenin’ every few days. We’ve only found one set of footprints and set of like, you know, any other physical evidence beyond the victim’s at these sites. That suggests to me that one, there is no group. There is no sire. Two, this isn’t about training or whatever you were thinking it was. You don’t do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. You do it ‘cause you want to, or you think there’s no other choice.” 

“Is there a three coming?” Nines asked dryly.

Gavin paused and looked up at the sky. Even out here the light pollution was too strong to let them see the stars. “I’m gettin’ to it, Jesus. The average human body has, what? Five liters in it? How many liters do you normally drink in one sitting?”

Nines paused for longer this time. He took a step closer to Gavin. “Only two or so,” he said, bringing his hand to his chin to cover his mouth. The usual bag held three typically, but Nines never made a habit of finishing them in one sitting. He’d drink some in the evening and then finish the rest before morning came. It made waiting for the next to come easier. Less painful.

“And these bodies we keep finding are drained dry, and you said they were all drained on site. Now, it’s been awhile since I took tenth grade anatomy, but I’m pretty sure the human stomach can’t hold five liters of anything for very long, especially if you’re still full from the last time you ate.” Gavin gestured widely with his hands. “This fucker knows they aren’t hungry. They know they aren’t starving, but they keep killing people anyway only to puke it up a few minutes later before they can drag their bloated ass back to their crypt. Ergo, fuckin’ bulimic ass vampires.” 

The pronouncement rang across the field, dissipating into silence as Gavin panted lightly for breath. He swore after a moment and cupped his hands over his mouth, struggling to keep them warm. His grey eyes glanced up at Nines shrewdly. “Well,” he said, voice muffled by his hands. “What are you starin’ at? Am I wrong?”

Nines just shook his head. “No,” he said, the makings of a smile curling his lips upwards. It was too dark for Gavin to see. “I don’t think you are. How did you just… know all of that? That can’t be common knowledge.”

Gavin swore, not even pretending to hide how cold he was. “Fuck, I don’t know? Because I paid attention in school. Can we do the rest of this in the car? I’m going to turn into an ice cube like you if we stay out here any longer.”

Oh. Right. Nines nodded and gestured towards the car. Gavin didn’t need anything else; he set off for it quickly, and Nines had to jog to catch up. Once he was abreast of him he could hear Gavin muttering under his breath about the cold, the late hour, and how pukey vampires were going to get him fired.

A tinge of guilt tickled the back of Nines’s throat at that last bit. He hadn’t spent long considering how he was inconveniencing Gavin. It was for a good cause, and the man was knee deep in the quagmire of the case already, but there was no denying they were doing their investigation while Gavin was on the clock.

“You’re handling this all remarkably well,” Nines offered, thinking a bit of praise was the least he owed Gavin for nearly giving him frostbite. “All things considered.”

Gavin looked over at him, cheeks a ruddy red, and scoffed. “Gee, thanks. Glad I’m coping well with the thought of monsters skulking around in the dark.” He pried one of his hands free from beneath his arm, rubbing at his face to warm it up. He let out a sigh that filled the air with fog. “At least we’re learning more,” he muttered. “Bulimic fuckin’ vampires. What a fuckin’ riot.”

Nines frowned. “You keep saying bulimia,” he murmured. “The vampire may be binging and purging, but I doubt it’s for the same reasons a bulimic human does it. It’s probably best not to associate that word too closely with your understanding of what’s going on.” 

“Oh yeah? Why?”

Nines frowned. “It’s hard to articulate,” he said, following Gavin across the field and back to the parking lot. Gavin wrestled with his pocket and fumbled for his keys, unlocking the car with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. “Blood isn’t something you waste. It’s an indulgence. It’s… life to us.”

The officer let out a victorious little crow when he managed to open the door and shove himself into the driver’s seat. Nines moved around the car and got in, closing the door behind him. He put on his seat belt as Gavin reached for his thermos of coffee, draining the hot drink dry.

He pulled the cup away. He licked his lips and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You think a fledgling would put that much stock into all that? I think if I woke up with brand new teeth and a hankering for blood I wouldn’t be all that poetic about it.”

Nines shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. A fledgling has more reason to care. You’re much more dependent as a fledgling. Everything is a challenge. Here, look.”

Nines leaned against the arm rest and pulled down his lips, showing Gavin his teeth. “A fully grown set of fangs takes times to fill in. We don’t just wake up the night after with new teeth.” He let his fingers fall and rested his chin on his propped up hand. His voice soured. “Whoever sired you is supposed to take care of you, feed you. It isn’t easy to hunt on your own when you haven’t grown into your role yet. No one wastes blood at that age. You don’t know how long it may be until you taste it again.”

“And you’re sure its a fledgling doing this.” Gavin looked at him evenly, then seemed to realize he hadn’t started his car yet. 

Nodding, Nines went on. This was probably the most he’d talked in six months. It felt… nice, having someone to talk to. “The marks on the neck, all those wounds.” He shrugged his shoulder a little. “The neck wounds were too ragged for it to be an older vampire.” He ran his thumb along the sharp points of his top incisors. Gavin’s hand paused an inch from the ignition, eyes wide and watchful. 

“For example, if I bit you right now I guarantee the wounds would look much cleaner,” Nines said, his thumb catching on his fang. Not by much, granted, but enough to make a difference. A bright bead of red blood bloomed on the pad of his finger. He sucked it into his mouth until it was clean. 

Gavin swallowed and fumbled with the keys again. “You don’t say,” he mumbled, voice tight. The key caught in the ignition, the car purring to life. The air wasn’t as cold as it had been before when it came blasting out of the air vents. Gavin quickly put his hands up to them, rubbing the life back into them. “So, it’s gotta be a fledgling then. That’s something we’re sure about.”

Nines nodded. He’d thought as much before, but this new line of thinking threw into question  _ why  _ the vampire was purging. Gavin was probably right in thinking it was from overeating. He’d assumed at first that a group was responsible given the number of killings and the frequency of it all, but the evidence didn’t support it. There were only ever one set of footprints. If a sire or even another vampire were involved, there probably wouldn’t be any reason to purge. They’d be advised to stop, to share. 

Did the fledgling not know any better? Was there something else causing them to drink to the point of vomiting? It was more instinct than experience that made a vampire stop feeding. Nines… didn’t know if it was different drinking off a live victim. He’d only ever been allowed refrigerated blood bags. He’d need to ask someone if a living donor made it harder to stop, to break away before overindulging. The Chief might know, or maybe one of the other higher ups. 

He frowned, narrowing his eyes. He supposed Connor might know. Even if he didn’t, that sire of his would. Nines pondered the thought of how that conversation might go. He pondered it for about three seconds before rejecting it completely— 

A hand slipped into view, snapping a few inches from Nines’s face. He startled, backed away, and then looked at Gavin. “What?”

“You zoned out on me,” the human said, putting his hands back on the steering wheel. It was beginning to snow outside, the flakes collecting on the windshield of the car before melting away into droplets of light. “What’s on your mind? Talk to me.”

“I’m just… thinking.” They’d established there was a pattern of purging at the crime scenes. They’d established that the killer was a fledgling, likely one lacking a sire, which implied it was an illegal turning. It felt… unbearably close to home in some ways. Nines wrapped his arms around his chest and nodded at Gavin to put the car into gear. “Let’s call it a night,” he said, tapping the toe of his boot against the floor of the car. “I need to do some digging, lean on some resources.”

Chief Rodalia had suspected a scandal was on the way from this. A low-tier clan illegally making a fledgling wasn’t scandal-making. It had to be something more. Something higher up on the food chain. 

The car lurched into motion, tires spinning for just a second as it fought to find traction on the slick asphalt. “Resources?” Gavin threw his arm behind Nines’s headrest again, the heat of his body searing Nines like a miniature sun. “What sort of resources?”

Nines let out a breath he hadn’t needed to take and rested his head on his shoulder. He stared out into the dark streets just outside the window. “I’ll just show you later,” he said, wondering if it’d be too much to ask for a ride home too. But… no. He could walk. The cold wouldn’t bother him anyway. 

“Oh, so we’re doing this again?”

His eyes found Gavin’s reflection in the glass. He had his eyes on the road. His heartbeat was steady; his lips were curled upwards in the makings of a smile. Like… Like he’d be pleased if they were. Like he was excited at the prospect. 

This was good. 

This was progress. 

“Yeah,” Nines whispered. “I think we are.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: very pushy behavior from an oc towards Nines. groping, fondling, provocative language that Nines isn't 100% okay with, but nothing egregious. If you don't handle that well, might be best to proceed with caution.
> 
> Also, this chapter is dedicated to FoxFlannel! Thank you so much for the support!

Things were going about as well as they could go, considering Gavin was working an off-limits case with a fuckin’ vampire as a partner. Progress was being made, the picture was slowly starting to form, and it was on a slow night at the precinct that Gavin found a text message lighting up his phone from an unknown number.

_(590-602-5899)_

**_— Come alone, Caldwell and Madison. Wear civvies. 3 a.m. - 9_ **

Gavin glanced down at the lit up screen, snorting to himself at the signature. 9. Just 9. It’d be cute if he didn’t know the guy doing it… Hell, he couldn’t even finish that thought. It’d be a lie to say he wasn’t cute in his own way, but that was neither here nor there, especially when _there_ happened to be the intersection of Caldwell and Madison, the now being twenty ‘til three, and the number in question already perched on the corner like some high class hooker waiting for his evening to begin.

Gavin sighed and closed the message app on his phone, tucking the device into the pocket of his leather jacket. He had to sneak his day clothes into the precinct bathroom before heading out, ducking out a back door to avoid being spotted by the front desk guard. He’d left a note on Tina’s desk that he was taking patrol early and to text if anything came up. If she had caught him before, he knew already he’d be stuck behind his desk with no escape possible.

 _“Seriously,”_ she had said a few nights ago, the night he’d come back from taking Nines home after their little break through at the old factory. _“I can’t keep covering for you like this. I’ve got my own work to do, and it’s not like I still don’t need to patrol my own routes.”_

 _“I know,”_ he’d answered, knee bouncing beneath his desk and mouse hovering over a collapsed file he was making for Nines’s leads. _“I’m not gonna make a habit of it.”_

Which was a complete lie at this point, but as far as he could tell, there was no way around it. He pulled the keys from the ignition and stashed his badge on his belt, making sure his shirt covered it before he got out. The leads came when they came, and Nines’s schedule didn’t leave Gavin much time for scoping out crime scenes. There were only so many hours in the night, he had realized, and it was just his rotten luck that 90% of them occurred while he was technically on the clock.

The cold air stung his cheeks the second he opened the door. Fuck, Nines sure had a way of picking the worst nights for this shit. Gavin was pretty sure he still hadn’t thawed out from the last romantic midnight stroll they’d taken together, and it looked like he’d be pulling the same tonight too.

At least Nines was something nice to look at. Gavin raised a brow as he approached the curb, the vampire noticing him right off the bat and moving to meet him halfway. Nines wasn’t wearing a coat—surprise, surprise—and his hips held a dangerous sort of sway to them as they carried him forward. His top looked similar ones he’d worn before. Black, tight, form fitting in a way that made Gavin forget about the cold for a solid minute or two as he took in the pale slopes of Nines’s exposed shoulders and the cut hip bones jutting out over top his low-cut jeans. Subtle compared to the slutty get-ups he’d seen him in on previous occasions, but still unmistakably indecent given the time of night.  

“Hey, baby,” Gavin called out, making a show of leering at the vampire. “How much for a date?”

Without missing a beat, Nines replied, “More than you can afford.” He made a show of looking Gavin up and down, crossing his arms and popping his hip with an almost impatient air about him. It was nearly enough to make Gavin fidget. “You’re early...” he finally said, a lot more staying unsaid.

Yeah, Gavin wasn’t much a fan of the unsaid. “Yeah, and you somehow got ahold of my number. Life’s like that sometimes. What’s with the look?” Gavin asked, shoving his cold hands into his coat pockets. “This not dressed down enough for you? Sorry to say it, but I can’t exactly go around dressed like a tramp without freezing some important bits off in the process.”

Nines rolled his eyes. “I was just thinking you don’t look much like a cop,” he answered, staring off to the side. There was an alley nearby. Gavin swallowed, mind taking that little nugget of information to places it shouldn’t be so willing to tread. “It’s unexpected.”

“Oh yeah?” Gavin stood a little taller, cocking his head. “Why’s that?”

A shrug. God, the pale light coming from one of the old ass street lights made the bare skin of his shoulders glow like something otherworldly. “You have an air about you,” he said dismissively, crossing his arms loosely around his stomach before meeting Gavin’s eyes. “Anyway. I’ve set up a meeting with one of my… informants.” His nose wrinkled, his voice sour like a lemon. “I pulled some strings and leaned on a few favors. I think I can find out who the sire was, so long as this talk goes well.”

Gavin perked up. “Dude, that’s great news.” He peered over Nines’s shoulder into the alley. The streetlights didn’t extend far enough to show off much inside it. “Where are they? What’s our play?”

Nines bit down on his bottom lip, something that came off slightly intimidating given his eye teeth were sharp and curved beyond anything a human might have. “That’s… something we should discuss,” he said tightly, taking a step closer to Gavin. He blinked his pale blue eyes, then cast them elsewhere, avoiding Gavin’s with extreme prejudice. “I’ll be talking to him alone. You need to stay back. Preferably in your car. I’ll come get you when I’m ready to proceed from there, and we’ll head to—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Gavin cut in, tearing his hands from his pockets to cut through the air in front of him. He jabbed his finger into Nines’s chest. “Are you fucking telling me you called me out here—called me away from my actual _job—_ to watch you do all the work? I’m not just your ride, dipshit.”

Icy fingers wrapped around Gavin’s hand, pulling it away from his chest. Nines’s lips curled into a pronounced frown. “I wasn’t suggesting you were,” he murmured, pitching his voice low. He gave another glance towards the alley, stiffening like he heard something on the wind. “Dammit,” he spat. He looked at Gavin, releasing his hand. “He’s already here. There isn’t time to argue about this. Just trust me and go back to your car. You can watch from there, but for your own safety you need to remain out of sight until I’m done.”

Gavin bared his teeth. “Why the hell didn’t you do this without me then?”

“Because I forgot how early he likes to be,” Nines snapped, taking Gavin by the shoulder to push him in the direction of his car. “I thought there’d be more time to discuss this, but there isn’t. It won’t take long, alright? Just trust me. Can you do that?”

It rankled. It fucking burned in Gavin’s gut like battery acid from a burst battery. He scoffed and spat, jerking his arm free from Nines’s grip. “Fine,” he said, marching towards his car. His safety? What a crock of shit. So what if he hadn’t brought his gun with him? He could take care of himself. “At least tell me who the fuck it is you’re meeting. It’s a vampire, right? What flavor is it this time?”

“Triarii,” Nines grimaced. He kept one eye on the alley and the other on Gavin, walking him back to his car.

“Which one is that again?” Gavin muttered, shoving his key into the car lock with more force than was strictly necessary.

“The… _jocks,”_ Nines said brittley. He took the door and swung it open the moment Gavin had it cracked, putting the other ice cold hand on Gavin’s lower back to shove him inside the car. “Stay in here, Gavin,” he said, bending down once Gavin was splayed along his driver’s side seat. “I’m serious. Lock the doors.”

“Fucking _go_ already, Jesus,” Gavin hissed, shooing the vampire away and slamming the door closed too. He snarled when Nines didn’t leave. The fucker just hovered outside the car and stared down at the door, only moving when Gavin locked the fucking thing with a click of a button. Nines blinked, sighed, then dragged a hand through his hair. He turned towards the alley with all the air of a man approaching a lion’s den.

“Fucking vampire bullshit,” Gavin muttered to himself as Nines disappeared into the darkness. The blood was pounding in his ears, nearly deafening in the silence of his empty car. He crossed his arms tight. The leather of his jacket squeaked in protest. This was such bullshit. He glared down at the passenger seat as if Nines might feel it retroactively in some way. Fucking asshole.

It was impossible to see anything from the street. And Gavin tried. He fuckin’ did. He twisted in his seat in every way he could manage, peering through the darkness in hopes of seeing more than vague shadows nestled in the grimy alley. The streetlights weren’t bright enough to help him, their light angled the wrong way to illuminate anything but the street itself. Gavin drummed his fingers impatiently on the armrest. How long was this supposed to take?

Better question: how long was Gavin willing to let it take?

He snorted. When it came down to it, he was the cop in the situation. He was the one with the badge. Sure, he wasn’t a fucking detective, but neither was Nines— at least, Nines wasn’t a legally recognized one. Vampire bullshit didn’t count. Hell, Gavin had been _trained_ for this shit! What kind of training did Nines have? The guy could be a thousand years old, but that didn’t replace actual honest-to-God training on forensics and proper informant conduct. He came from the school of stick-evidence-in-your-mouth, and that alone was enough to tell Gavin that Nines wasn’t the one who should be making the calls in these situations.

Fuck it. Fuck it all. Gavin unlocked the door and opened it as quietly as he could, stepping out into the cold street once more. He’d get a bit closer and assess the situation— as was his _duty_ as an officer of the law—and he’d intervene if he thought Nines wasn’t handling things properly. Nines was competent, so it probably wouldn’t come to that, but more backup was never a bad idea. Especially, Gavin had to think, when fucking vampires were involved.

All in all, Nines had gone in less than ten minutes ago. Long enough to get things rolling, but hopefully not long enough to have gotten himself into trouble. Gavin quietly crossed the street, making a beeline for the alley. He’d just take a peek, see what the situation looked like and then form a plan from there. Things were probably fine. He sure as shit hoped they were fine. He hadn’t brought his gun to this meeting, so they better be fine.

Voices were beginning to filter through the ambient quiet of the night. He stepped onto the far curb and slowed down, wondering just how acute a vampire’s hearing was. His brow furrowed. He could hear Nines’s soft tones. It didn’t sound like he was angry or in danger...

Gavin reached the alley just in time to hear a low, gravelly voice go, “Aw, babe, don’t be so cold. Let’s chat a bit first. It’s not every day you call me up outta the blue. Hell, you never used to dress like this for me, so it’s gotta be a special occasion, right?”

The voice was familiar. Not in the sense that Gavin knew who it was, but in the way that the words flowed, the manner the guy was using to color every syllable with entitled condescension. Gavin didn’t know who this fucker was, but he sure as hell knew his type. It reminded him of meathead assholes from high school and the self-righteous egomaniacs from the Academy.

The cold coming off the bricks bled through the layers covering Gavin’s back. He could put a general face to this fucker already. Something big, mean, grabby and show-offy. Gavin felt a sneer curl his lips as he carefully peeked around the corner and into the alley itself.

Just as he’d expected, the fucker was big. The two vampires were positioned maybe halfway inside the alley, close enough to the back to avoid being spotted by drivers, but near enough that some manner of light still illuminated the space. Gavin’s eyes narrowed when he saw how they were situated. The informant was practically looming over Nines, which wasn’t an easy thing to do seeing as Nines had to be over six foot on his own. Gavin bristled when he saw Nines inching away from the ever approaching vampire, his back just about to meet the wall as a big, dinner plate sized hand flattened against the stone above his head.

“It’s for my current investigation,” Nines said dismissively, one arm wrapped around his middle to form a meager buffer. “I take it you read through my message?”

“Oh, I read it alright,” the guy answered, coming a step closer. “Read every last word. Kinda funny though. I thought you got rid of my number.”

Nines turned his head away. “This is a business call,” he said, words clipped, impersonal. “I only need information.”

A low, rumbling laugh sounded, sending a shiver down Gavin’s spine from twenty feet away. He gritted his teeth as the fucker drew up his other hand, not even hesitating before touching Nines with a familiarity that rankled. “I doubt that’s all you need. Y’know, I bet I could give you everything you _want_ too. What do you say? How about we mix a little pleasure with our business?”

Nines frowned. “I’m not the same little fledgling from back then.” His feet shifted subtly against the ground. “I thought you didn’t like us after we grew up.”

The man took Nines by the chin— Gavin expected Nines to bite him, but Nines let his lips be parted. The shiny white points of his fangs glistened in the low light coming off the street. “Oh, well, it’s not like you’re all that grown up. See here? Bit bigger since the last time I saw you,” he rumbled, pressing Nines fully against the brick wall of the alley. “It’s not a total deal breaker. I might be nervous if I didn’t know how good you were at keeping them in check.”

Nines didn’t try to shake off his touch. He just hardened his eyes. “I didn’t call you here for that, Ryker. Let go of me.”

Gavin’s blood began to boil when the asshole just laughed. His free hand settled on the dip of Nines’s waist, massive and insistent as it wrapped itself around his bare hip. “You are such a sexy bitch,” he said, burying his face in the crook of Nines’s neck. “Doesn’t fuckin’ matter if you got your fangs; that shit never changed. You remember how I fucked you, right?” He snaked his hand up Nines’s front, tugging the zipper at his throat down, down, down until the delicate line of his throat was exposed to the cold. Ryker touched it softly with his fingertips, then yanked down on the fabric, baring his nape.

Nines hissed. Ryker laughed again. “I bet you do,” he said, stroking this fingers over some mark on Nines’s neck. “I fucked you so hard, fucked you hard enough to break the bed frame. Do you remember what I did next?”

Nines sucked in a short breath of air. His eyes were closed tight. He shook his head even tighter.

Ryker let out the breath of a laugh. “Liar,” he whispered. He dipped his head down lower, putting his mouth dangerously close to Nines’s neck. “Maybe I should remind you.”

“Ryker,” Nines said, voice weak, body trembling. He fisted his hands in the jacket covering the guy’s bulk. “Stop it.”

“God,” the vampire just groaned against Nines’s skin, “you still smell like the little princeling you were supposed to be.”

Nines’s hands grabbed Ryker by the biceps and shoved _hard_ at that. “Get off of me,” he hissed, struggling and kicking for the space he wasn’t being given.

When Ryker laughed and didn’t even fucking budge, Gavin said fuck it. Fuck this, fuck Nines’s orders, and fuck this stupid, pushy, muscle-head _prick_ who clearly couldn’t take no for an answer. Gavin turned the corner and darted into the alley, hands curling into fists and his adrenaline tamping down the part of his brain screaming at him that he _should’ve brought his gun._

“Hey, fuckhead!” he shouted, both vampires pausing to look at him. “Get the fuck off of him!”

“Gavin?” Nines rasped, eyes wide with mounting horror.

“Gavin?” Ryker echoed with a snort, pulling away from Nines to look towards the street. “And who the hell is Gavin?”

There really must have been something about the way the guy loomed over Nines that told Gavin he had some sort of a fighting chance when he charged in. With him off of Nines… Well, that chance evaporated. Ryker—and what sort of vam-prick name was _Ryker?—_ stood at least a head and a half taller than Gavin, bigger than a linebacker and with eyes that burned like hot coals. His face was sculpted, obnoxiously handsome. A short beard followed the line of his cut jaw, and when he smiled, his teeth were massive. A smile looked like a snarl with fangs that fucking big, and Gavin froze in place the second the guy _smiled_ at him because Nines had nothing on this guy when it came to being intimidating.

 _Jock,_ Gavin repeated to himself. Ha. Understatement of the century. Why the _fuck_ didn’t he bring his gun?

Ryker took a step towards Gavin. Nines pushed himself off the wall and snatched Ryker by the jacket, drawing his attention away before he could… could do whatever it was he planned to do with hands that big and a mouth that mean. Gavin didn’t breathe until those eyes turned away. Nines whispered something too low and fast for Gavin to make out. He pressed himself against the guy’s side. Gavin wanted to protest that. He wanted to grab Nines and yank him away, but Ryker let out a dark rumble of a laugh and tightened his grip on Nines’s bare hip before Gavin could find the balls to do anything beyond stand there like a rabbit frozen in front of a bear.

Shit. He really might die.

“Who the hell is this?” Ryker asked, squeezing tight enough to make Nines wince. He cocked his head at Gavin and then swung it around to look at Nines. A grin bloomed across his cocky face, and he pressed his mouth to Nines’s ear to croon, “Aw, babe, did you want this to be a dinner date?”

Nines grimaced and shoved at Ryker until he pulled his face away. “Of course not,” he practically spat. Nines glared at Gavin hard. “That’s illegal.”

Ryker rolled his eyes. “Only if we get caught,” he murmured, resting his chin on top of Nines’s head. He slung his arms around Nines’s middle, embracing him from behind. “Come on, babe. You know you’d love it if you tried it. No one has to know.” A low, bestial rumble rose up beneath the words. Ryker’s dark eyes flashed red. “Bet you’d love it if I drained him dry and fucked you in the dregs.”

Gavin took a step back when Ryker grinned at him, his enormous fangs glinting wickedly in the low light.

“No,” Nines said. “Absolutely not.” He pushed and yanked at the arms around his waist. “It’s illegal, Ryker, and I’m not lying just so you can rage around a residential area.”

“Oh, so if we were anywhere else you’d let me?”

Nines succeeded in tearing the arms away from his waist. “Leave this human alone,” he snarled, pushing at Ryker until he backed up a step. “He’s got nothing to do with you.”

Ryker raised a brow. “So, he’s yours then, huh?” A snort. He took a step towards Gavin and Nines immediately stepped in front of the massive vampire, blocking his way. Gavin’s mouth went dry when Ryker still looked at him over Nines’s shoulder. “I don’t think I like that.”

 _And I don’t like you,_ Gavin wanted to say. Should have said. _Couldn’t_ say, because his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth out of a sickly combination of fear and distress. Those eyes flashed red again. Had Nines’s eyes ever done that? No, they went black when he went beast-mode. This was something different. This guy was… different.

If he got out of this alive, he was going to sit Nines down and make him tell him every single thing about the clans. Everything. Every power, every tick, everything.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it,” Nines said, bringing Gavin back to the immensely tension-filled present. He batted at Ryker’s hands when they went reaching for him again, but not even he could keep them at bay for long. They grabbed him round the waist, dragging him flush against Ryker’s chest. Nines hissed, “I didn’t call you here for this, Ryker. I’m not interested in you anymore.”

Ryker didn’t even blink at that. “You could’ve asked that princely brother of yours, but nah,” he breathed, pawing at Nines like he intended to fuck him in the alley, Gavin be damned. “Nah, you called _me._ I know you still want it, babe. Bet you can’t stop thinking about it. No one can fuck you better than a Triarii, not that Luminary prick Kamski, and definitely not some scrawny ass human.”

Gavin looked around the alley desperately. For a weapon, a brick, hell, a stake. He was never going anywhere unarmed again after this. Never fucking again.

He didn’t get the chance to act. Nines was doing just fine on his own, bracing his forearm against that barrel of a chest to push Ryker away. “I don’t _want_ Kamski,” Nines hissed, eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. “I’ve never wanted him, and it doesn’t fucking matter what Connor has or knows because I’m _not_ using him.”

Ryker snorted, rolling his eyes. He backed off Nines a tad and threw his hands into the air in mock surrender. “Sure, sure, whatever you say, babe.” He glanced towards Gavin, then grinned. “Sure hope you aren’t lookin’ for sires in all the wrong places though. It’d be a nasty thing if the next guy I meet in a dark alley goes askin’ me about more illegal fledglings and it’s your name I’m droppin’.”

Nines positively scowled. Ryker rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, whistling lowly at the expression. “Humans don’t make good pets for long, babe,” he said, looking at Gavin pointedly. “And it’s not like you’re allowed to have a donor either.”

“Seriously,” Gavin said flatly. It was amazing how much this fucker pissed him off. Enough to give him the balls to draw attention to himself again, at least. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

Ryker rolled his eyes towards the sky. “Ignorant too.” He let out a sigh and looked at Nines with disappointed pity. “You could do so much better.”

“Just give me the information already,” Nines pressed, clearly on the verge of losing his patience. “Ignore him—” _Rude,_ Gavin thought, “—and tell me what you know.”

“Man, I missed that spunk,” Ryker sighed, lacing his fingers behind his head wistfully. “You used to be so cute for me. Guess you grew out of it.”

Nines’s lips curled into a scowl. Ryker just rolled his eyes. “I kid of course,” he said, glancing at Gavin with searching, jealous eyes. “No clue what you see in this meat bag, though. Whatever. The sire you’re lookin’ for was already taken in. Luminary type, very hush-hush. I only heard about it ‘cause Triarii shit, so don’t go lookin’ for verification. I doubt you’ll get much since it’s a scandal.”

His gaze smoothly transferred back onto Nines. “What am I saying? I don’t need to tell you that.” The corner of his mouth quirked into a wry smirk. “You’d know all about scandals, wouldn’t you?”

Nines’s face went blank. Gavin looked between the vampire he knew and the one he didn’t (but resoundingly hated anyway), and opened his mouth to say—

“A name,” Nines interjected, his tone as cold as winter and like a bulldozer in its desire to keep Gavin from adding to the conversation. “Who was it?”

“One of the Devereaux brood,” Ryker said with a shrug. “Couldn’t tell you which, but it was one of the ladies. My guess is the youngest. Never could quite stand her and her fixations.”

Gavin looked at Nines, not seeing much recognition in his expression. The vampire was looking at the ground, his hand beneath his chin as he worried his bottom lip between his sharp teeth. The gears were turning, rattling to life. Gavin looked at Ryker next, a bit surprised to find the fucker already waiting to meet his eyes.

Ryker lowered his hands and rested them on his hips. “Still don’t get why you’re here,” he admitted, looking Gavin up and down. “Not a chew toy, so, what? I didn’t think Nines liked ‘em this small.”

Red blossomed behind Gavin’s eyes. He took a step forward, barb on his tongue—

“That’s enough,” Nines said, grabbing him by the arm. Fuck, his hand was as strong as a metal bar. “We’ve got all we need. We’re done here.”

Ryker’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth to protest, but Nines was already moving, dragging Gavin towards the mouth of the alley without a backwards glance. “Hey, babe, wait! No need to go so fast,” he laughed, not making much effort to chase after them. “What about my payment? You can’t leave without givin’ me my just reward, can you?”

The grip on Gavin’s arm tightened. “The Chief Inspector will send it your way,” he said, the words clipped and impersonal.

Oh, _snap._ Gavin looked back just in time to see Ryker’s face contort in abject disappointment. He barked out a laugh, only to have it be cut short by Nines jerking him hard enough to nearly wrench his shoulder from the socket. “Jesus, ease up a little,” Gavin hissed, turning back around. They were out of the alley now, emerging onto the street. He blinked rapidly, the sudden light smarting a bit.

“I thought I told you to stay in the car,” the vampire snapped, not even bothering to look back at him. The hand dropped Gavin’s arm. It went instead to the partially unzipped zipper at his throat, zipping it up until it completely covered what Gavin could see now was a deep, pronounced bite mark scarred into the meat of Nines’s shoulder. His breathing was labored. His body looked about as tense as marble, and it kept Gavin from asking what that was all about.

“You needed my help,” Gavin rattled off with more force than he really felt matched how the rest of him felt. He reached into his pocket for the keys. Fuck, his hands were shaking. Every single night he spent with Nines felt like five years off his life. If they kept this shit up, he’d be one foot in the grave by the time they caught their killer.

“I had it under control.” Nines appeared at Gavin’s side without even a whisper of sound, stealing the keys from his numb fingers with ease. He shoved them into the lock and turned it, unlocking the door for him. He yanked open the door and jerked his head towards the interior. “Get in,” he said, and it was clear from his tone that he wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

Gavin clenched his jaw anyway, shoving himself into the car just to reach over the armrest to open the passenger side door pointedly. He turned in his seat, arms crossed, and stared Nines down. “You get in,” he said, not managing to match Nines’s seamlessly inflectionless tone. “Or are we not going to talk about what just happened?”

Nines grimaced. Of course, when he did it, he managed to make it look elegant. He slammed Gavin’s door closed and glided his way around the car. Gavin watched with narrowed eyes as Nines clearly weighed the pros and cons of slamming that door too and walking off, but then he thought better of it, probably when he realized he still had Gavin’s keys in his hand. He let out a sigh and folded himself into the car, closing the door behind him. They keys were tossed into Gavin’s lap. He pointedly didn’t fasten his seat belt.

“Talk if you’re going to talk,” the vampire muttered.

“Don’t get snippy with me,” Gavin muttered, fetching the keys before they could disappear into the darkness beneath his feet. “It’s not like it’s every day I have to deal with your vampire drama. Who the fuck was that?” He pulled the keys out from between his legs and looked at Nines, the sulking vampire. “Clearly he knew shit, but who the fuck was he?”

Nines stiffened. He slouched in his seat. “Ryker,” he said flatly. “A Triarii. He’s a bodyguard for a prominent Luminary. He hears things.”

Alright. That explained how he knew it was some Luminary that got taken in for siring a new fledgling off the books. God, these terms. It made his head hurt just thinking about it all. He rubbed at his temple and tried to focus on something a little less headache inducing. “So, uh… he your ex?” he asked quietly, wondering if there was a delicate way to broach the subject when the subject in question was a 240 pound muscle head with a penchant for airing dirty laundry to complete strangers. And not even just dirty laundry. Painful shit. Bad shit.

Gavin knew something about shitty breakups with shitty exes who knew too much shit for their own good. It’d been awhile since he’d last dated because of that kind of thing, and he could tell that Nines’s baggage was a hell of a lot heavier than the kinds of things Gavin’s ex had broadcasted after they’d ended it then. Shit about a scandal, all that fuckin’ Kamski talk. Who the fuck was Kamski anyway? Some high up guy? It all sounded a lot worse than Gavin’s ex telling all their friends about how he forgot dates and blew off anniversaries for work, that was for sure.

The barest nod of a head answered him. Nines kept his eyes fixed on the window. He held himself tightly, fingers curled into fists that rested on his biceps. He licked at his lips, replying, “We used to… Date isn’t the word.”

Gavin raised a brow. “Fuck?”

Somehow Nines got even tenser. “Yeah,” he said quietly, just a whisper. “I guess you could call it that. Mutually use each other is closer to the truth, but sure.” He turned towards Gavin, his eyes cold and his expression as bitter as the precinct’s coffee. “You should have stayed in the car.”

“That fucker was about to assault you,” Gavin scowled, twisting in his seat until he faced Nines properly. “I’m a fucking cop. You can’t just expect me to sit around with my thumb up my ass as some meathead feels you up.”

Nines furrowed his brow. “I didn’t need your help—”

“That doesn’t fucking matter, you’re gonna get it anyway,” he pressed. Gavin sucked in a bracing breath and looked Nines up and down. He was shivering, his eyes wide, his arms wrapped around himself like a security blanket. “Seriously,” Gavin said, lowering his voice a bit. “The fuck is your problem?”   

Nines deflated. He looked at the floor. “I didn’t want you to see,” he said quietly, so quietly that Gavin barely heard it at all over the sound of the engine running.

“See what?” Gavin glanced back towards the alley. It wasn’t like Nines was going to let that guy fuck him against the wall. Even from the get-go, Gavin had been able to tell that Nines wasn’t into the fucker. He slowly turned to look at Nines. “Your old fuckbuddy?”

Blue eyes met Gavin’s, piercing and cold and as sharp as a jagged piece of ice. Gavin furrowed his brow, and Nines grimaced, turning back to look at the dark street outside his window. Jesus, what was with this attitude? Gavin rolled his eyes and shoved his keys into the ignition. The car whirled to life.

“Are you going to answer me or are we going to sit in here with you sulking all night?” Gavin muttered. “‘Cause I need to get back to the precinct if you’re going to be a little bitch about me finding out you’re—”

 _“What?”_ Nines cut in, sharp as a blade and just as venomous. He twisted in his seat, full out glaring at Gavin now. “Finding out I’m _what?”_

Gavin tossed his hands into the air. “I don’t fucking know! I don’t know what I just saw, and it’s not like you want to fill in any fucking gaps about why I had to see that fucker get to second base with you just for some fucking information!” He wasn’t even sure why he fucking cared to know. Ryker was a fucking creep, but… Fuck, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. He had no reason to care.

Nines’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, Gavin feared his hunter face might come out, the one with the mangled teeth and dislocated jaw. “That’s all they ever do with me,” he said bitterly. The fabric covering his arms bunched up beneath the grip his fingers had on the sleeves, liable to rip if he didn’t ease up. “Try to fuck me for the story of fucking me, try to get close to me for the sake of using my influence, try to just… just _barter_ me around like some piece on a chess board I’m too low-ranking to even see...” He looked at Gavin. Looked at him hard. “I didn’t want you to see how I’m treated around them. My life is complicated enough without you adding onto it.”

Gavin paused. The words hung heavy and thick in the air, pressing down on his temper until he nearly deflated. The fear tickled the back of his throat. He licked at his lips. He was learning something here. Something important, maybe even instrumental in understanding this… this monster with an angel’s face he’d tied himself to.

“Oh,” he said intelligently. “That… sucks.”

Nines didn’t relax. His mouth was twisted into a hard, razor thin line. He stared at Gavin. Waited. For more questions, maybe. He probably could sense that Gavin had more, that he wasn’t done. The car thrummed. The tinny, nearly imperceptible sounds of a late night talk show undercut the gut wrenching tension burning in the air between them.

Gavin debated turning the radio off completely. He decided against it. More silence to add onto Nines’s wasn’t something he wanted to deal with right now.

“At least we, uh… We got some info from him, right?”

Nines relaxed just a little. He nodded his head.

Gavin nodded too. Good. Alright. “Knowing the sire helps us, right? Gives us some leads?”

Another nod. Nines’s shoulders dropped a little, no longer bunched up around his ears. “She was a Luminary,” he said quietly. “We know what the fledgling is capable of now.”

“And we can build some profiles too,” Gavin went on, falling back onto what he knew best when it came to police work. Going by what Ryker said, he wouldn’t hold his breath on there being much possibility of them getting an interview with the sire in question. “You know who she is, and that’ll give us a direction to move in. We can research her associates, figure out when she might have met someone to turn.”

“It won’t be that easy,” Nines said, carefully turning to look at Gavin. “Luminaries are the upper echelon of our society. Their movements aren’t easy to track. Things… _happen_ if you try to look too hard at them.”

Gavin bobbed his head. It was the same when the police had to look into high ranking politicians. He settled his hands on the steering wheel, staring out the windshield to count the streetlights lining the road. Ryker was probably long gone by now. The things he said, though, were still buzzing around Gavin’s head like a swarm of angry, incendiary hornets.

He licked his lips. He made sure not to look at Nines as he said, “Your brother is a Luminary, right?”

He had to be. Connor was his name, right? Everything Ryker had said pointed in that direction. Gavin bit down on his bottom lip, chancing a glance at Nines.

Shit. He was back on the defensive again, eyes forward, jaw clenched down hard.

Like the idiot he was, Gavin couldn’t help but keep going. He was being egged on in a sense. Egged on by his curiosity, by that fucking challenging glare in Nines’s gaze. “And, uh, he might know some things about other Luminaries.” He hadn’t even known Nines had a brother, but it was an angle they could play if he could just convince Nines to do it. “Might be a good person to lean on if you’re chummy. Is he like, your real brother? Some kind of weird vampire blood brother shit or—”

He cut himself off when he got a good look at Nines’s expression. Gavin heart stuttered in his chest. Too far. Too fucking far.

Nines said nothing. He didn’t need to for Gavin to know he’d crossed some kind of line. His face didn’t morph, didn’t sharpen. It just… froze in place, a statue devoid of life, humor, and humanity. Gavin sat there, held in place by that gaze— And then Nines grabbed the handle for the door, opening it without blinking, without breathing, without _anything_ to show he was still alive. He turned with inhuman precision and got out of the car.

“Wait,” Gavin rushed, reaching out a hand. He coughed. His voice was ash in the pit of his lungs. “Nines, wait—”

The car door closed with a loud, final slam. Gavin swallowed, then swore. Nines was gone, disappearing into the darkness without even a trace of having been there at all. Gavin smacked his hand on the steering wheel and swore some more. He pressed his forehead to the stiff leather wheel.

Leave it to him to fuck up twice in one night, and royally at that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since there was a lot of general chatter on twitter about Ryker and Nines's history following the publishing of this chapter, I ended up writing a smutshot/lore fic called Synecdoche to fill in the gaps and flesh out how those two met and began their rather ill-planned relationship. If you're at all interested in seeing the violent way Ryker became a vampire as well as glimpse into the sort of relationship he and Nines had before Nines cut things off entirely, give it a read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17721608. 
> 
> Please mind the tags. Ryker's intro this chapter is a good indication of how he is as a person. It's not a happy read (everything that happens in the fic is consensual tho i can't say its good sexual etiquette), but it'll give you a good idea of Nines's experiences back when he first became a vampire all those years ago and the rough ways other fledglings find themselves brought into the fold. It's not a fic for everyone, but it's here if you want it. And hey, if you don't want to read it but would still like to know Ryker's story, hmu on twitter and I'll be happy to give you a rundown of it all OvO7


	8. Chapter 8

Gavin liked to pride himself on his ability to take a hint. If someone wasn’t into him, he tended to pick up on that pretty easily, and ten to one he’d take it with grace when communication stopped abruptly. Ghosting was shitty. It felt  _ shitty,  _ but if someone wasn’t into him, who was Gavin to keep trying regardless?

Of course, that was for relationships. Personal shit.  _ Dating.  _ It had  _ nothing  _ to do with a murder case, and because of that Gavin felt he was allowed to be pissed when Nines ignored the twelfth text message from him in as many days. He was allowed to feel jilted and hurt and furious, because while Nines was  _ sulking  _ away in his fucking Dracula crypt, two more bodies had turned up in ditches during Gavin’s shifts. 

People were dying. Innocent people were  _ dying,  _ and Nines was ignoring his fucking calls like the bitchy cheerleader he’d made out with during a football game in high school and never heard from again. 

It wasn’t right. It just wasn’t right. 

Gavin shoved his phone into his pocket and looked out the window of his car towards the shitty sight of Nines’s shitty building in all of its shitty glory. The sun was just setting behind it, elongating the shadows and drawing the jagged edges of exposed boards into stark relief against the white backdrop of the frosty, filthy snow stuck to world around it. Gavin shifted in his seat, drumming his fingers on his thigh nervously. He hadn’t been back here since that night, the one when Nines had used his vampiric wiles on him so thoroughly he still could only recall pieces of what transpired. 

Not a resounding argument for him to go through with the idea he’d gotten into his head, to be honest. 

Gavin let out a harsh sigh, the car already growing cold with the ignition off. It was his day off, so if he really wanted to sit here and think about it, he could. He could sit here for hours until his peace offering grew cold too. Or, he thought to himself in a smarmy, belittling voice, he could nut the fuck up and get this over with. He could go into that tetanus-filled building, climb up the stairs, and knock on Nines’s door until the bastard opened up and  _ talked  _ to him. 

One of these options was the adult one to take. Gavin bared his teeth at the to-go cups nestled in the seat beside him. God, he hated being an adult sometimes. 

With more vigor than he truly felt, Gavin snatched up the cups and shouldered his way out of his car, taking care to lock it behind him before he stomped his way into the apartment complex. The door screeched on rusty hinges, protesting his entry every step of the way. And wasn’t that the biggest mood he’d ever felt? Fuck, this place was nasty. Gavin let the door crash shut behind him. He held his breath as much as he could as he made for the stairs. It fucking reeked. 

Did something like that bother someone like Nines? Did vampires have enhanced senses of smell? They had to, right? They hunted like fucking bloodhounds, and Nines had done that whole… licking thing. Clearly he could smell shit, but still he lived in a place like this. Gavin pulled a face, trudging up the stairs. A shiver rolled down his spine. It was fucking cold in here too. Wind from the outside whistled through holes riddling the walls. Did any humans live here? How could anyone who wasn’t already dead stand this fucking shithole?

He let out a rough breath once he reached Nines’s landing. Nines had said he was bottom rung when it came to hierarchy. Maybe this was just what he got for his troubles. This bedbug infested nightmare of a home, and Gavin marching up to his door at what had to be the asscrack of dawn in vampire terms, apology coffee in hand and a new handful of murder details to really get his blood pumping. 

Whatever. It clearly wasn’t Gavin’s business what Nines’s personal life was like. He’d made that abundantly clear when he stormed out of his goddamn car. 

The bitterness of the thought manifested heavy and thick on the back of Gavin’s tongue. He swallowed it down, pushing forward, noting the door he’d seen the last time he’d come this way. 509. Nondescript, stained, chipped, and with a suspiciously pristine cooler tucked up close to the door frame. Gavin raised a brow at that. He looked around the hall, but every other door was barren of anything similar. Hell, none of them even had welcome mats. 

Gavin tightened his grip on the coffee cups in his hand. He really hoped it wasn’t a bomb. He sucked up his courage and leaned over, rapping his knuckles against the door from a distance before pulling away as quickly as he possibly could. 

Nothing happened. 

A breath colored the air with fog. Gavin took a bracing drink from the coffee he’d earmarked for himself, wondering if maybe he should lean down and put his ear to the cooler. Bombs ticked, right? Maybe he could tell from that— 

The mystery of it all went away pretty quickly in light of the door opening. Not because the thought of a bomb not even two feet from him wasn’t prominent— it was. Only, seeing Nines in all of his stone-faced glory, sporting a damp towel around his neck, no shirt, and a low-slung pair of ragged sweats around his hips physically struck all thought from Gavin’s brain. 

Gavin’s tongue plastered itself to the roof of his mouth. Heat filled him from head to toe, so hot that not even the ice in the vampire’s eyes could douse it right away. Trickles of water rolled down Nines’s neck from his hair. One droplet made its way past the towel. It rolled over the peak of a pale pink nipple. Holy fucking  _ shit.  _

Nines stared at him, then sighed. He leaned down and hooked his fingers through the handle on the small cooler. “What are you doing here, Officer?” he muttered, crossing his arms as he leaned heavily against the door frame. The cooler settled against his ribs, and something wet echoed from inside it.

That broke Gavin from the reverie. The wet noise and  _ Officer.  _ So, they were back to that? Gavin cleared his throat, frowning at the floor. “Well, I didn’t really have much choice,” he said tightly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You haven’t been answering my texts. Hell, I even called you.” 

A brow rose. “And?” 

“And?” Gavin gritted, his scowl rising up too fast to combat. “And we’ve got a job to do, Nines. You can’t just bring me into the fold and then ghost me out of it. People are  _ dying,  _ and if you think—” 

Nines’s head cocked to the side instantly, his eyes growing sharp. He looked to the right, somewhere down the hall. Gavin let out a growl and followed his line of sight, but when he saw nothing of interest, he went on. “And if you think that you can just—” 

“Shut up,” Nines said, holding up the hand that wasn’t carrying the cooler. His eyes narrowed at whatever it was he saw down there. “Come in if you’re going to insist on talking about that.” His eyes were cold when they finally settled on Gavin once more. “I don’t need my neighbors getting even more curious than they already are.”

Gavin snorted, taking the invitation easily. He brushed past Nines’s bare shoulder, sniping, “Then maybe you should try to be less conspicuous,” under his breath as he went. Answering the door like that. What if it was some random person selling girl scout cookies? Was Nines in the habit of giving the whole world a free show?

Of course, being inconspicuous was probably asking too much of him. It was impossible for him not to stand out in a shithole like this. 

Nines’s place looked the same as it had the last time Gavin had been here, only without the veneer of compulsion guiding him forward, Gavin found it a hell of a lot harder to make himself enter the depressingly dingy room. The coffees in his hands were the warmest things in the place, the walls pockmarked with invisible cracks that let in the cold like tiny arrows of ill intent. A pile of clothes had been tossed on the floor in one of the corners, and the threadbare, disgusting mattress was still right where he’d left it the last time, pathetic and shapeless against the far wall. Nines didn’t even have a blanket on the thing. 

God, this place made Gavin sad. The light was still on in what served as Nines’s bathroom, giving the place the vague image of being lived in. He must’ve interrupted him mid-shower. Nice.

The door closed behind him with a pointed click. Gavin stiffened, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. He just took another drink of coffee instead of reacting. Nines wouldn’t hurt him, no matter how pissed he was after their last interaction. It’d just make things worse if he acted like he was scared. 

“You should really think about getting a plant in here or something,” Gavin murmured, eyeing the trash bag covered windows critically. “It’d brighten the place up a little.” 

The boards squeaked as Nines moved past Gavin, setting the cooler on a chipped counter in the disgusting little kitchenette. Gavin watched him open the top and peer into its depths. Blue eyes glanced up at him, and Gavin averted his gaze quickly. 

“What do you want, Gavin?” the vampire asked. Out of the corner of Gavin’s eye, he could just see Nines pulling something from the cooler. Not a bomb. Small mercies. 

He shrugged, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I texted you already about it. One of my contacts at the DPD was able to dig up some information about that Luminary chick, the Devereaux one. Alumaria Devereaux— which, I gotta say is the most pretentious name I’ve ever heard. I’ve got a list of names of recent contacts she’s made, and I figured we could maybe go door to door, see if we can’t—”

There was a puncturing sound right behind him. Gavin slowly turned around as something gave a wet  _ slurp. _

_ “What  _ are you doing?” Gavin’s voice croaked.

Nines glanced at him but didn’t lower the ripped plastic bag from his lips. His throat moved in steady swallows, prominent and starkly white as a thin trickle of red liquid spilled past the corner of his lip to roll down his chin, his neck, his… clavicle… 

If it rolled over that nipple, Gavin was going to have a heart attack right here, right now.

“Is that a… blood bag?” Oh, god. He’d walked right past Nines’s  _ lunch.  _

Nines didn’t stop drinking until the bag was half drained. He carefully twisted it, folding the open cut under so no blood could drip out once he pulled his mouth away. With careful, practiced fingers, he wrapped the bag up and nestled it inside the cooler once more. Nines ran the tips of his fingers up the length of his neck, scooping up the stray drops before sucking them off his fingers with a wet, pink-tinged pop. 

Gavin nearly whimpered. Nines was still shirtless, still wet from his shower. He forced himself to look away when Nines finally turned to face him. The vampire’s nostrils flared. Gavin just prayed he couldn’t smell how much that just affected him. 

“What names?”

Gavin blinked. “What?”

Nines narrowed his eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest, the towel still hanging from his neck doing far too little to cover him from sight. “What names did you find?” he said, lifting a brow pointedly. “Make me a list. I’ll check it myself.”

The spell was broken in an instant. Gavin furrowed his brow, frowning. “Um, yeah, no. We’ll do it together. Like we’ve been doing this whole case.” 

Nines looked down at the twin cups of coffee Gavin held in his hands. Then, he looked back up at Gavin. “No,” he said plainly. Simply. End of discussion. He turned towards the corner with the pile of clothes, crossing the room in three short steps. He crouched down, digging through the pile. “If you came here to give me details on the case, then give them to me and go.”

Gavin snorted at that and, just to be the dick that he was, stomped his way over to the mattress and plopped down on it. The fucker didn’t have a couch, so Gavin would have to make do. Nines paused in his rooting to look at him over his shoulder. His frown became more pronounced, and he grabbed for the first pair of pants he could find before standing back up with a glare. 

“I’m not going to give up that easily,” Gavin warned him, draining his coffee and setting the empty cup aside. “I know where you live and even if I didn’t, we’d bump into one another anyway while doing our own investi… investigations…” 

His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as Nines shimmied out of his sweatpants right in front of him. He wore tight grey boxer briefs beneath, too tight to give him much modesty if that was indeed something he cared about. It probably wasn’t given how easily he stripped with company in the room. His legs were long, so fucking long, his skin pale and smooth and perfect. God, the guy had muscle everywhere. Lean and hard, sculpted but not just for show. Gavin could stare for hours at the lines of his hips, the curve of his ass in those briefs. It was enough to coax that whimper back into Gavin’s throat just from the scant thirty seconds he had to look before Nines poured himself into a pair of tight black skinny jeans and hid it all from sight. 

Nines’s nostrils flared again. He turned his head, looking straight at Gavin as he zipped the zipper with an almost furious intensity. “Then I’ll deal with it as it comes,” he said quietly, resting his hand on his popped hip. “I don’t want you here, Gavin. I don’t want to talk to you at all.”

Ah… Somehow it hurt more hearing it said and not just implied. He set down his empty coffee cup and focused his attention on the one he’d brought for Nines. Gavin swallowed, flattening his palms around the base of the coffee cup, rolling it slowly and smoothly between them. It warmed him from the base of his palm to the tips of his fingers. “I didn’t just come here for the case,” he said, sucking on his bottom lip. He looked up at Nines, face burning at the gratuitous bare skin still on display not even five feet from him. Gavin let out a harsh breath. God, this was really hell. 

Nines didn’t make any of it easier on him, because of course. Why would he? He was pissed at Gavin still, tormenting him for it with the sight of his perfectly sculpted back as he shrugged on a criminally tight sleeveless number that was only marginally better than him half naked had been. Barely. The vampire glanced over his shoulder once it was in place, brow arched just so. “Then why are you here, Gavin?” he asked, the response slow, pulled from him reluctantly. 

“To apologize,” he said a bit rougher than he anticipated. He cleared his throat, trying again. “For before. For being a dick to you. I pissed you off and I’m sorry.” 

Nines sighed softly, folding his arms in front of his chest as he turned on his heel to face Gavin a little more than he had before. “You didn’t… piss me off,” he said haltingly, looking to the floor. His lips were twisted into a frown, his cheeks… almost tinted with color. Almost. The perks of just feeding, Gavin had to think. 

“Ah… That’s…” Gavin curled his hands firmly around the coffee. It warmed him up a little, loosening his tongue. “That’s good. I’m… Yeah.”

Icy blue eyes settled on him then. “I said you didn’t piss me off,” Nines bit. “I didn’t say you didn’t still fuck up.” He turned fully this time, crossing the distance between them in two quick steps. He leaned over Gavin like a imperiously pissed off model, hands on his hips and eyes flashing. “I told you already, Gavin, and you refused to listen.”

“Are we really going to get into this again?” Gavin shot back. “I’m not going to apologize for stopping that fucker from touching you.” 

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Nines snapped. 

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Gavin never had a clue what Nines was talking about. “Is this because I asked about your brother?” he guessed, narrowing his eyes shrewdly. “If it’s a sore spot for you, I won’t fucking ask about him again.”

Nines covered his face with his hands, exhaling harshly in the silence that followed Gavin’s words. “You are the  _ worst,”  _ he muttered through his fingers. He dragged his hands down his face, staring at Gavin with cold, frozen eyes. “You don’t understand a thing about me. I tell you to  _ stop  _ and you keep digging deeper all the same.”

“Then  _ tell  _ me why I need to stop.” Gavin shifted himself over a few inches, freeing up half the mattress for Nines with all the subtlety of a brick to the head. He patted the grungy spot too for good measure. “Sit your ass down and  _ talk to me.”  _ He sure as hell wasn’t leaving until they did. 

“I could throw you out of here,” Nines said, refusing to make it easy, because of course. “I could kill you.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you could do both,” he drawled, “but you and I both know you won’t, so why don’t you stop it with the empty threats and sit the fuck down already?”

It looked like he wasn’t going to budge. Nines glared down at him with an intensity that seemed to warm the air between them. The muscles in his arms bulged just a bit, but that just made Gavin want to look at him all the more. God, he looked nice like this. He owned sweatpants but still dressed like a fuckin’ snack in his own home. Maybe he’d planned on going out before Gavin invited himself over. Maybe this was just how he preferred to dress when around other people. 

Gavin frowned. No, Ryker had said Nines had never dressed like this for him before. This sort of style wasn’t Nines’s usual fare. Just went to show how little Gavin actually knew about the guy that he couldn’t definitively say what Nines wore when he wasn’t on the job. He didn’t know his hobbies or his likes or dislikes. All he knew was what Nines had told him, and that wasn’t much. Just vampire shit and things pertinent to the case. 

“Look,” Gavin said, softer this time. He ran his fingers through his hair, staring up at Nines carefully. “I’m sorry, alright? I said it before and I’ll keep saying it until you listen, but we’ve both got shit to do. There’s a murderer on the loose and we both know we won’t get as far on our own as we would together. So, just… just sit down with me, alright? I can’t stop pissing you off if you don’t tell me  _ why  _ certain things are off limits.”

Nines narrowed his eyes. His fists loosened minutely. He looked over Gavin’s head and scoffed. Without a word he approached the mattress, turning around to sit down beside Gavin with far more grace than Gavin had employed doing the same. He sat  _ close.  _ Close enough for the cold line of his shoulder to brush Gavin’s. He looked at Gavin expectantly. 

“You get three questions,” he said quietly. He turned to face the door, crossing his thick arms beneath his chest. “Make them count.”

Gavin swallowed, his eyes going wide. Wow. That was more than he expected to get. He drummed his fingers on the lid of the coffee cup. A smirk quirked his lips. It’d be a waste of a question to ask if Nines even liked coffee. He’d been thinking like an idiot when he sprung for apology drinks. Nines wasn’t Tina. He wouldn’t be assuaged as easily as she would with coffee and pastries and Taco Bell. 

“Your brother,” Gavin began. It’d be best to get the elephant in the room out of the way first, then go from there. “What’s his deal? Like, are you related or is it a vampire thing?”

“We’re actually related,” Nines said tightly, stiff as a statue against Gavin’s shoulder. He glanced at Gavin, then looked back at the floor. “Twins.” A beat of silence. “He was older than me. My big brother.”

Gavin started in on the second coffee. No sense in letting it go to waste, and Nines clearly wasn’t thirsty anymore. “Was?” Ugh. It was going cold. It was probably optimistic to think Nines might own a microwave, wasn’t it?

Nines crossed his arms tighter, his fingers digging into his biceps. “He was born twenty minutes before me, but turned first.” He turned his head towards the far wall, away from Gavin’s curious eyes. “I… aged past him before I was turned.”

“By how much? How old are you?” Gavin asked, quickly sputtering when Nines twisted his head around and pinned him in place with his gaze. “Shit, is that rude? To ask, is that rude?” Jesus, he just wanted to know how old Nines was. 

That got him an eye roll, so probably not as bad as it could be. Nines sighed, slowly relaxing out of his stony pose. “Three years, eight months,” Nines replied, words clipped. “He was twenty-seven when he was turned. I was turned on my thirty-first birthday.”

Alright then. Gavin took another sip from his coffee cup. They were pretty close in age in that case, Nines just a year older than him. “Sounds like a… uh, that’s a hell of a birthday present,” he mused, smoothing his fingers along his thigh to warm them back up. “How old-old are you?” Caffeine was kicking in already. He would be wired for the rest of the night, easy. 

“That’s three questions.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a bitch about this,” he said, nudging Nines with his shoulder. “It’s harmless and you’ll feel better if you just talk to me.” 

The frown Nines wore on his face said the exact opposite, but he probably realized that it was either he answer more questions or throw Gavin out bodily. Answering was definitely the lesser of two evils. “I was turned in August of 1997,” Nines recited without much fanfare. He folded his hands in his lap, looking uncomfortable. “It’s 2020 now, so…” 

Gavin nearly spat the coffee across the room. He caught it just barely in his hand, swinging his head towards Nines to stare at him in shock. He was thirty one when turned. Turned in 1997. 2020 now meant— 

“You’re only 54?” he wheezed, feeling cheated somehow. 

Nines blinked at him morosely. “Yes,” he replied. “Is that a problem?”

Gavin shrugged helpless as he wiped his handful of coffee on the mattress beneath him. The thing was disgusting enough that a little bit more wouldn’t hurt it much. “Jesus,” he muttered, resting the coffee on his thigh before he choked or something. “I just expected you to be older. Like, centuries older. My  _ dad  _ is older than you.”

A smile nearly managed to take root on Nines’s face. He huffed a little, almost a laugh, and shrugged. “I’m just about grown out of my fledgling years,” he said. “Ten more and I’ll be considered fully-fledged.” He braced his elbows on his knees, crossing his arms loosely against his chest. “It’ll be good when that finally happens. It’s not easy being a fledgling on your own.”

Gavin hummed noncommittally. He’d said as much the other night in the car, but Gavin hadn’t anticipated that Nines knew from experience. It brought up the question of what happened to his sire. Hell, it brought up a lot of questions. Dozens. They buzzed around in Gavin’s skull like bees, pinging against the bone as they fought to keep themselves in check. 

“It’s good to know that about you,” he admitted, relaxing a little against the mattress. “I never would’ve guessed.”

“Yeah, well…” Nines trailed off, relaxing just a little bit too. “I haven’t spoken to anyone about it for awhile now.” His jaw tensed a little. He exhaled sharply through his nose. “There’s no one to talk to these days. Trusting people isn’t…”

Gavin raised a brow and waited. It took a minute, but his patience was rewarded when Nines sighed. He deflated further, looking at Gavin. 

“What?” Gavin asked.

“Just ask,” Nines said a bit bitterly. 

“Ask what?”

A scoff. Nines bared his teeth. “You know what. I know you want to ask, so just say it.” 

He knew it. _ Three questions, my ass.  _ Gavin could practically hear Nines’s inner voice screaming for Gavin to give him the excuse to unload. He still bit his lip regardless. There were rough waters ahead. He could feel them as easily as he could feel the cold air prickling his skin. “Nines, if it’s not my business—” 

Nines closed the distance between them. His thigh pressed flush against Gavin’s. He leaned in close, close enough that Gavin could see flecks of steely grey in the depths of his blue, blue eyes. For a split second, Gavin was certain Nines was going to use that compulsion shit on him. That he would  _ make  _ Gavin ask just so Nines wouldn’t have to beg him. 

But... he didn’t. He just stared at Gavin, the hard lines of his face softening into something vulnerable just beneath the surface. “Just ask me, Gavin,” he said, quiet and fragile. Brittle. Thin ice atop a coursing river. One wrong step would send them both crashing into the waters, leave them gasping and drowning in depths colder than either of them could rightly take. 

God, he was beautiful. 

Gavin’s fingers dented the paper of his cup. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, slowly looking down at his boots. “What do you want me to ask? Who the hell is your sire? Why are you an Enforcer?” he asked, biting the bullet they both seemed to be sharing between them. He cleared his throat. “Your brother is a Luminary.” He stiffened his spine and leaned into Nines’s shoulder, bracing the vampire as he carefully turned, whispering, “What happened, Nines?” Clearly he wanted to talk about it. Maybe he needed the excuse more than Gavin needed answers.

Nines tensed. Hairline cracks in the ice. He bit down harshly on his bottom lip, turning his head away from Gavin. His shoulders looked as if they had been carved from stone, cold and unyielding. They rattled to life with a shallow inhale, and then Nines was talking. 

“My brother met a man one night,” he said quietly, not moving a muscle. Not looking at Gavin. “A man named Elijah Kamski.”

“...Kamski.” Ryker had said that name. He’d… implied a lot while using it. Gavin licked at his lips nervously. “Anyone I would know?”

Nines shook his head a little. He turned just a little, nothing more than a glance. “He’s an important man,” he said dryly. “You’d know of him if you were in my social circle, but otherwise, no. No, you wouldn’t.”

Gavin nodded easily enough. “Alright. Tell me about him.”

The mattress dented and dipped. Nines faced forward again, eyes locked on the floor. “There’s not much to tell about him. I barely knew him, and Connor didn’t talk much about him to me. He knew I didn’t like the man, and he knew I’d try to talk him out of seeing him if he tried. They met at a party, a sort of… corporate mixer one New Years Eve. Our family was new to those sorts of things. We’d only just made our fortune with the dot com boom, and Connor was… He was so excited to rub elbows with everyone. To put our family name on the map.”

Nines hunched his shoulders. His fingers curled into fists in his lap. “He somehow managed to get Kamski’s attention at that party. I’d already found a quiet corner to hide in, but Connor was only too eager to chat with anyone who cared to look at us.” 

He paused there, pursing his lips. “I think that earnestness attracted people to him. Not always good people.” He sneered a bit, the expression harsh in the soft light of the room. “Kamski spoke to him the entire night. A letter came the next; our business advisors were so hush-hush about it, like they  _ knew.”  _

“Knew what?” Gavin murmured. 

“Knew that Kamski wanted Connor for something more than just company,” he answered coldly. “I have my theories about it, about those circles. I think once you’re at that level of social importance, you’re brought into the fold. Not much, mind you. Those idiots didn’t know everything, but they knew enough to understand that when you get a letter from a name like Kamski, you best do all you can to impress him.” 

Gavin grinded his teeth a little. A shiver rolled down his spine. “You think your advisors knew that guy wanted to turn your brother?”

Nines looked at him. His eyes were cold, steady. “I think they knew what that sort of interest could mean for our family. Kamski was wealthy. Insanely powerful. Connected in every way. If he backed you, if there were a… a merger of sorts…” He shook his head, letting it fall into his hand. “Suffice to say, they told Connor to do whatever Kamski asked of him. To meet with him, to impress him. Kamski would call on Connor at all hours of the night. For dates, for dinners, for outings where Connor wouldn’t come home until days later.”

“Where were your parents in all of this?” Gavin did the math easily enough. “You were what, mid-twenties when all of this happened? Didn’t your parents care?” 

Nines opened his mouth only to close it again a second later. He made an odd sound, something hurt, a little embarrassed. He coughed weakly behind his hand, then shook his head. “Our parents were dead, Gavin,” he said quietly, eyes averted. “My brother and I built our company ourselves. We were… scions of our own making.” 

Oh. Oh, shit. Great. “So, not only were you super fucking rich,” he said dryly, “but super fucking smart too.”

Rolling his eyes, Nines shrugged. “Don’t sound so surprised. It’s not like they would have assigned me to Internal Affairs if I turned out to be a complete idiot.” 

“Whatever,” Gavin said, feeling a little inadequate all of a sudden. He knitted his brows. “Wait… Why are you in such a shitty ass apartment then?” he asked, gesturing around them furiously. “You’re fucking rich. Where is your mansion, richboy?” 

“Please don’t call me that,” Nines whispered, kneading at his eyes. “It’s… complicated. There’s a lot of legal contracts involved when a Luminary wants you. To sum it up succinctly, a fledgling’s assets were to be combined with those of the sire’s. Connor is the elder brother. He had control of everything, so it all became his when he was turned. I was to be given my share when my turn came, but given what happened to me… It violated the contracts.”

“Don’t fucking tell me…” Gavin fumed. “Did they give your brother  _ everything?” _

Nines let his pale hand fall from his face like a limp flower shedding its petals. “Don’t put the blame on him for that. He did his best to convince me to take what he tried to give me, but…” His hand clenched into a fist. “It felt too much like pity. I was sick of pity at that point. I didn’t want handouts. I didn’t want to be his pity project for the rest of eternity.” He let out a harsh sigh. “I changed my name and went the usual route as an Enforcer fledgling. You earn your keep in this organization. The more cases I solve, the better haven I’ll be given. I was promised a much better one upon completion of this case.” 

Wrinkling his nose, Gavin scowled. “Well, at least there’s that, I guess. Man, that pisses me the fuck off though. All that money… and you fucking earned it. You worked for that shit.” Gavin scowled, waving his hand at Nines. “Just go on. What happened next?” If Nines didn’t move on, he’d just work himself up to the point of wanting to punch something. 

The tension came back as if it had never left. Nines narrowed his eyes, nodding his head. “What happened next was Connor falling for the man. It only took a few months for it to happen.” His lips curled back into a muted snarl. His fangs glistened sharply in the low light of the room. “He came into my room after his latest date with Kamski, sat me down on my bed, and told me everything.”

Blinking, Gavin furrowed his brow. “Everything…” Like… “ _ Everything- _ everything?” __ He couldn’t even begin to imagine how that conversation might have went. 

The smile on Nines’s face was sharp, mirthless. “Yes. Everything our advisors had left out about the sort of creature Kamski was and the kind of society we’d already unknowingly become a part of the moment Kamski expressed interest in my brother. About how Kamski asked him, and how he’d said yes to him.”

“Kamski gave him the choice?” 

Nines nodded, making no effort to look at Gavin now. “He told Connor he wanted him to want it on his own. Connor…” He grimaced, kneading at his eyes with his fingers. “Connor told him he only wanted it if I was allowed to have it too. Naturally Kamski agreed. Said it would only be fitting that  _ the Brothers’ Arkay  _ come into the fold together.” 

He lowered his hand and let it hang off his knee. “Of course, something like that wasn’t as simple as he made it seem. It was enough to satisfy Connor, though. He came home already turned. He told me, got me…” He grimaced, “He got me excited that I would be next.”

Gavin’s mouth was dry. “Did Kamski lie?” 

The laugh that came out of Nines was as cold as the wind hissing outside the paper thin walls. He shook his head. “No, he didn’t lie,” he said, glaring at the wall. “I’m sure he meant every word. Of course, he could say whatever he wanted. It didn’t make it true. It didn’t make the rest of that clan any more likely to act in any of our interests. But it was enough for Connor,” he said, swinging his attention towards Gavin. “It was enough for Connor to give himself to that man, leave our house, and move in with him, all while telling me my time would come. To just be patient.”

“Jesus—”

“But I was young,” Nines plowed on, hunching forward to brace his forearms on his knees, “and stupid. I was  _ hurt  _ by it. Months passed and my turn didn’t come. Years passed. I aged. He didn’t. Connor… We did everything together. We were all we had after our parents died, and he… he  _ still  _ left me behind.” Nines’s voice cracked there. He faced the wall and furiously hid his face from Gavin. “He left me to be with his sire instead.”

Silence enveloped the room. The coffee had gone cold in Gavin’s hand, so he set it down on the floor. But, that just emptied his hands. Left them empty and awkward. Should he reach out? Touch Nines’s shoulder? He started to but thought better of it when Nines began to speak again. 

“To keep me settled as the years rolled by, I was told by our advisors that I was being actively considered too,” he said, voice absolutely barren of all inflection. “That Connor wasn’t the only one the Luminaries were interested in. Our family name was in line with their usual recruits. Our…  _ pedigree,”  _ he practically spat, “was perfect for it. They told me it was guaranteed that I would follow in Connor’s footsteps just as soon as a suitable sire was picked to take me.”

“Picked?” The hell did he mean by picked? Gavin scowled. “This isn’t fucking dodgeball in high school gym. Why did that fucker Kamski get to just scoop up your brother?”

“Kamski is the head of the bloodline, so it’s easy for him to do as he pleases, but there’s… politics to the rest,” Nines answered, despondence coloring every word. “Every new fledgling comes with influence. They had to weigh out my worth,” he said quietly, “and pick a suitable sire who wouldn’t benefit  _ too much _ from my connection to Connor. To Kamksi through him.” 

Gavin sat back a little, running his fingers through his hair. “That sounds like complete and utter bullshit. Jesus. You had it all lined up though,” he said, more than confused. “They were gonna pick you a sire, okay, but then… what happened? How did that all fall through?” 

Nines’s jaw tensed, loosened, then tensed again as a bitter expression passed over his face. He twisted his hands in his lap, long, pale fingers clenching on the edge of the mattress between his legs until the fabric threatened to rip. “I got… impatient,” he said eventually, low and quiet. “Fed up with it. I didn’t see why Connor could be picked so simply while I had to be  _ debated.  _ I never handled things like that well back then. If I got upset, I ran off.”

“Ran where?” He was a rich kid, right? Off to Europe? It’d fit if Nines got grabbed by a vampire in Europe.

Nines glanced at him, a wry smile curling his lips. “To clubs,” he said. He snorted a little. “What, didn’t expect that? I was big into the club scene back then. I drank, I got high, and I did whatever I could to forget whatever it was I went there to forget. I… I had a lot to forget growing up.” He lifted a hand and rubbed at his eyes. His smile fell from his face like it had never been there to begin with. “It happened on my birthday.  _ Our  _ birthday. Connor was spending it with Kamski. I hadn’t seen him in months. I thought he didn’t care. That he didn’t need me anymore. That he’d gotten everything he wanted with that sire he’d charmed so easily…” 

His voice faded into silence as he trailed off, a marked change from the momentary glimmer of mirth he’d began with. Gavin swallowed, shifted. Nines didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. When he spoke again, it was soft. Muted. As fragile as the scant inches between them. Nines licked his lips, but didn’t lift his head. 

He whispered, “I was poached.”

Gavin furrowed his brow. “What does that mean?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer. 

Nines didn’t disappoint. “A rogue Enforcer spotted me at the club. He recognized me as the Luminary-to-be that everyone was arguing over, and he turned me,” he said, refusing to look away from the floor. “I thought he was a human. He told me he wanted me. He was handsome and I was drunk and… I…” Nines trailed off, clenching his hand over the bite mark on his shoulder. With sickening clarity Gavin realized that must have been where his sire had bitten him. Nines’s voice weakened considerably as he whispered, “I just wanted to be wanted.” 

This time, Gavin didn’t bother to think about  _ ifs  _ or  _ should’s. _ He wrapped his arm around Nines’s shoulder and squeezed, pulling him towards his chest for a half-hug he hoped felt better than it probably did. Gavin wasn’t good at this shit. At comforting. He wasn’t a delicate person. He wasn’t… Fuck, he wasn’t good at making people feel better. It was his job to make  _ things  _ better, not people. Nines was shaking. Minutely, but it was there. Gavin probably wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t touched him. The vampire sucked in a breath, leaned against Gavin the slightest amount, and kept going. It just… spilled out— 

“He did it on purpose,” Nines told the floor, clutching even harder at his shoulder. At his siremark. “It’s illegal, turning someone without permission. But he… It was suicide, him doing what he did, but he did it anyway. Said he wanted to taste the highlife, something he’d never get otherwise. I was just a conquest. He… didn’t really want me.”

“Nines...”

Those blue eyes turned towards him, a stiff set to Nines’s jaw that belied the fragile look the rest of him held. “They killed him for it,” he said, voice flat, eyes dull. “Connor found me two days later, still in the shitty motel room he’d fucked me in. They had to track him down, that Enforcer. He ran once he’d finished with me. Ran while I bled out. While I  _ died.”  _

Gavin closed his mouth. He swallowed, tasting something bitter on the back of his tongue. Impotence, probably. The feeling of not knowing how to help, of there being nothing he could say to possibly make this better. He didn’t try to front that it wasn’t like that. He just sucked in a breath and held Nines a little tighter. It wouldn’t hurt him. Nines wasn’t that easy to break. 

At least not like that. Not physically. 

“The worst thing,” Nines went on, staring at the far wall of his shitty apartment, “was that there was nothing that could be done about it. They told me that. Repeated it constantly. What a shame, what a shame, such a  _ waste. _ I’d been tainted with lowblood. Negotiations stopped. I was thrown into the Enforcers’ ranks and… and here I am. I haven’t spoken to my brother in months. He keeps trying, but I don’t… I don’t want to see the pity in his eyes when he looks at me. When he sees the way I live. That’s why I got so… yeah. I don’t want to see him or ask for help. Not after all of that.”

There was nothing to say to that, was there? Gavin let out a breath and nodded his head. He understood, frustrating as it was to let an asset like a Luminary go. “I get it,” he said quietly. “That’s fine.”

Nines gave a maudlin sort of snort, clutching his hands around his bent knees. “Is it though? He got everything and I got nothing. He says he’s sorry, but you’re the only one who’s ever bothered to come to my shithole of a home just to make me accept an apology.” He woodenly turned, lifting his head then. He twisted his lips into the most forced smile Gavin had ever seen. “Happy?”

Gavin swallowed, his mouth dry. “What… What part of any of that would make me happy?” he asked hoarsely, throat constricted, mind more than just reeling. 

Nines shrugged. He held himself tightly, leaning ever so slightly against Gavin’s side. “You’ve been curious since we met,” he muttered. “The mystery is solved now, isn’t it? Now you know how pathetic I am.”

“Pathe— Nines, what the fuck?” He shook the vampire under his arm until he got him to look him in the eye, and then Gavin frowned. “Seriously. What the fuck? How is any of that pathetic? You were assaulted during a hookup and your own brother fucked off with his happily ever after while you rot away in a dump. That’s fucking traumatizing even without the vampire political bullshit you were already in the middle of.”

A snort. “You are such a cop sometimes,” Nines said without much heat. 

“Yeah, well, that’s who I am,” he answered. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong. I wanted to know about you, Nines. I’m not going to judge you just because you gave in and told me what all happened.” Not like everyone else in Nines’s life. Fucking Ryker— That asshole must have prowled on all this insecurity, made Nines feel like he didn’t have a chance for anything better than some musclehead with a power trip kink. 

Nines shrugging broke Gavin from the smouldering rant building up in his head. He was going to murder that son-of-a-bitch the next time he saw him, gun or no gun. “I didn’t know how you’d take it,” the vampire mumbled, making no move to free himself from Gavin’s arm. “It wasn’t any of your business, but you kept prying anyway. For all I knew you were just curious about vampires. It’s not like I know you that well either.”

Gavin blinked. He looked at the floor, running through all of their interactions again. He’d just… assumed Nines knew about him, didn’t he? He’d come to his workplace, gotten into his car, spoken to him at length before Gavin even knew it hadn’t all been a dream. 

“I… Fuck, I’m not that hard to figure out?” Gavin offered, so out of his depth that it wasn’t even funny. “My parents are divorced, I’ve got a sister and a brother I don’t talk to either, and, uh…” Fuck, he wasn’t even an interesting person. How was he supposed to go next after hearing Nines’s HBO-brand life story? The only thing that was interesting about him was… 

Of course. He dug a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone, thumbing through the lockscreen to open up the photo album. “I’m not a complicated guy. My job is pretty much my life. The only thing that’s interesting about me is Tildie.”

Nines looked up at him curiously. “Tildie?”

He nodded. “I’ve got a fuckin’ cat named Matilda and she bosses me around so much.” He shoved his phone into Nines’s lax hand, pointing at the furry little gremlin in question. “That’s when she was a kitten. Swipe right, I’ve got an entire folder just of her.”

Nines was shaking, shivering like he could feel the cold. He stifled a small noise and swiped right, zooming in on the pictures of Tildie sleeping or wearing stupid little things Gavin had made for her. Her pipe cleaner hats and milk-covered nose, snapshots of her tucked under Gavin’s chin as he watched tv, that one time he’d found her sleeping flat on her back with her legs in the air, mouth open and tail draped off the edge of the sofa. 

“She’s the only thing about me that isn’t work related,” Gavin tried to joke, knowing already it fell flat and pathetic instead. His cheeks warmed up despite himself. 

“She’s gorgeous,” Nines whispered, swiping left when he ran out of photos in the album. “I love cats.”

Of course he did. Nines was fucking perfect, so of course he loved cats too. Gavin dragged a hand down his face, hoping it hid just how hot his cheeks felt. “She’s my everything,” he said without an ounce of shame. Anyone who loved cats would understand. “I found her during a patrol when I first got the job. She’d been attacked as a kitten, probably by a dog or another cat.” He snorted a little. “First time I ever got chewed out by my boss was ‘cause I skipped the rest of my patrol to take her to an emergency vet. She’s been with me ever since.”

Nines let out the breath of a laugh. “I was wrong.”

“Oh?”

“You’re not a cop,” Nines said, smiling just a little. “You’re a massive softie.”

Gavin colored messily and unrepentantly. “Hey, I fuckin’ resent that,” he snapped without much heat; there was none to spare when all of it was focused in his cheeks. “There’s no reason why I can’t be both, you know.” He held out his hand for his phone, and Nines gave it back with mild reluctance. Gavin closed out of the photo app and opened up the email he’d been sent earlier that evening with the names associated with the Luminary. He showed it to Nines. “Here,” he said, clearing his throat. 

Nines’s fingers were room temperature when they touched his wrist, angling the phone towards him. “What is it?” He sounded a little disappointed when he saw it was just an email, not more photos. The pad of his thumb rolled over Gavin’s inner wrist. He glanced up at Gavin. He smiled the smallest little smile Gavin had ever seen. 

Gavin’s heart fluttered in an odd little way. He stuttered through a shaky laugh, pounding back the dredges of the lukewarm coffee to distract them both from the sound. He lifted himself off the disgusting mattress, away from Nines and the way he pressed against his side, almost-warm and heavy. 

“Leads,” he said, tossing the empty cup at what passed for Nines’s trashcan. He let Nines keep his phone. “Got leads. Feel up to checking them with me?” He fussed with his jacket, zipping it up for want of something to do as he looked back at Nines. “It’s my day off. Figured we could spend it together like friends or something.” 

He looked at Nines, draped over that stained, ratty mattress and cradling his phone like all he wanted was to invite Gavin to sit back down and show him more photographs of Tildie in her stupid, silly little hats. 

And… Nines smiled. Nothing big, nothing wide. Just… quirked the corners of his lips upwards, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he nodded his head. His brow furrowed as Gavin’s heart gave another concerning stutter. 

“Friends who investigate murders together?”

From the caffeine, he told himself, grunting as he gestured for Nines to hurry up. Two coffees would do that to a man. 

“Yeah,” he muttered. “What else are friends for?”


	9. Chapter 9

The mood in Gavin’s car felt better than it had the last time he’d had Nines in it with him. The tension in general was lacking greatly. Gavin fought a smile as he pulled away from the curb in front of Nines’s apartment, but he didn’t fight the looks he kept throwing Nines’s way. It just… It felt _good_ having Nines back once more. Back investigating with him, back to talking to him. Two weeks of nothing hadn’t been fun in any sense of the word. But now…

Gavin glanced at Nines. He smiled when Nines caught him in the act.

“What?” Nines asked, furrowing his brow. “Is there something wrong with my face?”

God, it just felt good. Gavin grinned, shaking his head. He faced the road and took them down a street full of tall high rises and fancy looking condos. The first name on their list lived in one of them. “Nah, your face is just fine,” he said. Understatement of the century, but there it was. “Just thinkin’, is all. Our first name lives up along this street. You ever questioned humans before?”

Nines rested his arm on the center armrest, his forearm just brushing Gavin’s. He rolled his head on his shoulder, blinking in that slow, catlike way of his. “How do you know they’re human?” The tease of a shy smile quirked his lips. It nearly took Gavin’s breath away. “It’s not like your contact would know if they were or not.”

The car swayed to the right, bumping against the curb as Gavin briefly forgot how to drive. The resulting bump and thud snapped him out of it, and he jerked the wheel to the left and put his eyes back on the road where they belonged. Nines grabbed for the pull handle above his door out of instinct. Gavin just swore. “Sorry,” he hissed, his face burning hotly as he gripped the steering wheel hard. “Fuck. Uh, what was the question?”

“I don’t know if we should be talking if you can’t drive straight while maintaining a conversation,” Nines said after a moment of staring that Gavin resolutely did not return.

Gavin gave a nervous sort of scoff. “It’s not like you can die again,” he muttered, hitching his shoulders up towards his ears. “I’m fine, I swear. Really, what did you want to know?”

Nines pursed his lips, but didn’t push it. He shifted higher in his seat and pulled away from the armrest. Gavin’s eyes followed him as he went, then looked at the road ahead when Nines turned to face him. “I asked,” the vampire began, “how you know the lead is human. We could be approaching the home of a Luminary.”

“Well, last I checked you don’t show up in a mirror,” Gavin drawled, turning into the cul de sac they were looking for. “And these folks, the Meyers? They’ve been in the society pages for years now.” He glanced at Nines curiously. “Unless you _do_ show up in photographs?”

A shake of the head. “We don’t.” He looked out the window.

“Well, good.” Gavin couldn’t say he knew a lot about vampires just yet, but he felt like he was picking up on it faster each day. Or, night, he amended, glancing at his GPS and then at the massive houses lining the short street ahead. The one they wanted was smack dab in the middle of the turnabout, glistening with sporadic lights in a way that told him easily that the owners were still awake. He let out a breath of a sigh, pulling up to the curb. It seemed Gavin wasn’t the only one adapting to a nocturnal schedule to keep pace with vampiric company.

“How are you wanting to do this?”

Nines shrugged. “They’re just human,” he said quietly. “The danger isn’t likely to be much.”

Gavin snorted. “So, you won’t try to force me to sit in the car as you do all the questioning?”

That earned him a surly little pout. “That was for your own safety,” Nines recited, unbuckling his seatbelt. “If I hadn’t intervened, Ryker would have torn you to pieces just for the fun of it.”

“Thought that was illegal.” He unbuckled his belt too, getting out of the car. The cold air stung at his cheeks. He breathed it in and then let it out, closing the door with a little less care than Nines did with his.

“It is, but like Ryker was so kind to point out, only if you get caught.” Nines moved onto the sidewalk and waited for Gavin to join him before turning to face the house. “You’ve got your badge on you, right?”

Gavin nodded, tugging his shirt aside to show Nines. “I figure I’ll flash this at them, tell them I’m a detective investigating a case.” He looked at Nines carefully, taking in his current outfit. “You… should probably hang back a little. You aren’t exactly dressed like a cop yourself.”

Nines looked down, his eyes widening a little as if he hadn’t noticed. He wrapped his arms around his middle and nodded, not meeting Gavin’s eyes. “Fair enough,” he said quietly, almost self-consciously. Fuckin’ amazing given how brazen he’d been about changing into that in front of Gavin not even two hours earlier, but what could you do? Vampires. Gavin shook his head and didn’t belabor the point. He just set off towards the house, trusting that Nines would follow at a respectable distance.

The house was a lot bigger up close, Gavin realized. Bigger and fancier and a hell of a lot more than he could ever hope to emulate himself in this lifetime. Gavin craned his neck to take in all the little bells and whistles as he scaled the entryway steps, rapping his knuckles on the door before he noticed the big brass knocker hovering at eye level. The thing had a… was that a lion? Some sort of animal? It had something on it, molded into a shape that favored ostentatiousness over practicality. Gavin scoffed a little at it, rolling his eyes when Nines settled in behind him, tucked out of the pool of light given off by the overhead lights that flickered on a moment later. Gavin stood up straight, clearing his throat.

The door opened. A middle-aged man poked his head out, dressed in a silk pajama set that probably cost as much as one of Gavin’s paychecks. Robert Meyers. His cocked his head and took in Gavin. “Is there… something I can help you with?” he asked, lifting a hand to smooth back his already impeccably smooth blond hair.

“Yeah, I’m hoping there is.” Gavin flashed his badge and then a smile. “I’m Detective Morrison from the Detroit Police Department, here on official business. Could you answer some questions for me, Mr. Meyers?” Gavin didn’t break eye contact to check how Nines reacted to the little lie. Meyers looked on the verge of not buying it, and he needed every ounce of command he could manage to sell the bit.

“Honey, who’s at the door?” a feminine voice called out somewhere deeper in the house. Meyers looked up, twisting around just as a woman swayed into view. She was dressed in a bathrobe embroidered with the initials _KM._ This must be Kierstie, the wife. She looked Gavin up and down, wrinkling her nose. “Who is this?” she stage whispered, tugging at her husband’s sleeve.

“A detective, dear,” he answered, wrapping an arm around her waist. He tensed his jaw, and for a moment Gavin couldn’t tell if he bought the act or not. “You… do know we have a telephone, right? Is there a reason you’re calling this late at night?”

Gavin’s smile went a little tight. Yeah, that was something hard to just brush aside. Normal people weren’t up working this late. “Law and order never sleeps,” he said, trying for a joke he could tell already wasn’t going to fly. Robert narrowed his eyes, his wife crossing her arms.

“What did you say your name was?” he asked, looking down at where Gavin had his badge half-obscured.

“Morrison,” Gavin said quickly, not missing a beat. “And this won’t take long. I’m here to ask about someone I think you may know. If you can just answer my questions, I’ll be on my way.”

Robert glanced at his wife. “I’m not sure if now’s the time to be chatting about our friends and colleagues,” he said with faux levity, the skin around his eyes tight. “How about you give me your badge number and I’ll give you a call in the morning, Detective… Morgan, was it?”

“Morrison, sir, and I’m afraid this can’t wait. Alumaria Devereaux,” Gavin pressed, tone clipped, patience evaporated. “Do you know her or not?”

“That’s a little out of your paygrade, Detective,” Robert said, his voice practically dripping with hoity toity condescension.

“Mmm, yes, quite. Couldn’t get an invite to a party, could he?” Kierstie echoed, tucking a wayward lock of blonde hair back into the loose bun it’d slipped free from. She batted her pale green eyes at him, her smile so fake that it cut like cold wind. “It’s just as well, though. They’d become dull as of late anyway.”

“Kierstie,” Robert led indulgently, nudging her with the point of his elbow. “Gossip is best saved for cocktail hour.” He met Gavin’s eyes next, returning his attention evenly. “We do know her, Detective, but I would hardly call us anything more than acquaintances. If there’s something wrong, you would do better to look elsewhere for information.”

Kierstie snorted at that, a nasty sound that stuck in the base of her throat. Her lips curled into a bitter frown. Gavin raised a brow at that, but the woman just jerked her face away from him and put her shoulder to her husband, effectively removing herself from the conversation. Interesting.  

Movement over Gavin’s shoulder flickered in his peripheral vision. He turned a bit as Nines stepped into the light, arms crossed and mouth set in a firm line that looked more at home on gargoyles than anything living… _or moving,_ Gavin corrected silently. “If you’d just be honest with us, we’d be on our way,” he said quietly, avoiding eye contact like the plague. “You’re lying. We don’t appreciate it.”

Their smug faces froze like rain against frozen stone. Both paled. They turned towards one another, looking into each other’s eyes. Gavin had just enough time to glance at Nines quizzically before Robert came to life all at once. He jerked his head up, staring straight at Nines.

“Is that… Honey, look who it is,” he whispered, shaking his head as he looked Nines up and down.

His wife sniffed as she leaned against the door frame. Her cheeks were pale, but she was rousing if only slightly. “Who… Oh,” she said, an air of _something_ in her voice that Gavin didn’t appreciate one bit. She sounded… shocked. Like a ghost stood in front of her and here she was without her rosary. “You’re the Arkay brat. The youngest.” Kierstie looked at her husband, lips parted and eyes wide. “Robert… How is that possible?”

Gavin furrowed his brow. “You know these guys?” he murmured, glancing up at Nines. Nines turned his face towards the ground. His shoulders were stiff like granite, his eyes fixed on the welcome mat beneath his feet.

“Kierstie, get in the house,” Robert whispered, tossing an arm around his wife’s shoulder to guide her away from the door.

“Hey, we aren’t here to cause trouble,” Gavin led, looking between the husband and Nines for answers he clearly wasn’t getting. “All we want to know is if you’ve seen Miss Devereaux with anyone suspicious—”

“Clearly you don’t know the Devereaux’s at all if you’re asking something like that,” Robert muttered, Kierstie put up a token fight before hiding behind him in the doorway. “They make it a point to invite an array of guests, and I think you’ll find we know nothing more than that.” He reached for the door and began to shut it. His eyes cut to Nines, another flicker of fear and unease rolling over him in a wave. “If that’s all, we’ll be retiring for the evening.”

“Actually, I’ve got more to ask,” Gavin said, taking a step forward.

“No,” Robert said, “you don’t.” The door closed with a loud, final slam.

“Oh, you did not just shut me out,” Gavin muttered, raising his fist to pound on the door. A second later, the entryway light went dark. Gavin banged on the door again, swearing when he heard the unmistakable click of a lock falling into place from the other side. He let his fist slide down the door, his head falling in defeat. “Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes. “I didn’t anticipate that reaction.”

Nines made a soft sound. Gavin lifted his head and saw how stiff the vampire was. He raised a brow and Nines frowned, turning away from the door to begin walking back towards the car. Gavin set off after him, fixing his jacket around his shoulders as he caught up with Nines once he hit the street.

“Hey, you alright?” he asked, pulling out the keys and unlocking the car as they approached.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nines muttered, walking around to the passenger side with a bit more force to his step than was strictly necessary. Gavin frowned at that, opening his door to get inside. Nines did the same, sidling in roughly. He let out a low sigh that was nearly lost in the slamming of the car door.

At least he just seemed frustrated this time and not hurt. Gavin pulled on his seat belt, taking one last look towards the fancy building they’d just left. “You could’ve warned me that they already knew who you were.” It would’ve saved them both some time and the potential lead if Gavin had just gone up there alone.

“I didn’t recognize their names,” Nines said, crossing his arms tightly. “I mean, I’d heard of them before but I couldn’t put a face to it. The last time I saw them I was human, and they were just teenagers sneaking drinks while their parents schmoozed.” He glanced at Gavin a little, furtive and shy. “I told you already that I didn’t make a point of it to chat with people at those parties. That was Connor’s thing. I just drank and hid until it was time to go back home.”

“Well, if that’s the sort of company you were rubbing elbows with anyway, I can’t say I blame you for that,” Gavin answered, turning the car on. He let out a sigh that was lost in the heater coming to life. “It wasn’t all a bust. He clearly knew you were a vampire, even if he hadn’t expected for _you_ specifically to be one, so that means he was in the know. It sounded to me like… I don’t know, like Devereaux was known to keep strange people around her. Maybe these two weren’t exceptional enough to make her inner circle, so that at least gives us a baseline to go off of.”

Nines nodded, easing up as the car began to fill with warmth once more. He let out a sigh and propped his elbow up on the center armrest. He settled his cheek in his palm, leaning on it heavily. “You’re pretty insightful, you know,” he said quietly, staring ahead as they pulled out of the ritzy neighborhood and got back on familiar, less lit paths. “He did give off that impression. His wife… seemed bitter. Like she was jealous that they weren’t closer to her.”

Gavin shrugged. “Maybe the fledgling isn’t rich.”

“That would cause a scandal,” Nines murmured, turning his head on his hand. “Where to next?”

“See, that’s a question with multiple answers,” he replied, shrugging a little. “The next name on the list is someone I also know isn’t a vampire.”

“Oh, yeah?” Blue eyes gave him an assessing look. “How do you know that?”

“Because Tina knows this one,” Gavin said, nudging Nines’s arm with his elbow when he kept on staring at him. “Tina would know because we’ve brought this chick into the station during the day, alright? That proof enough for you? She’s a hooker who deals with high end clients sometimes. We got her on a public intoxication charge coming home from a party the Devereaux’s hosted last month.”

“That’s not much to go off of,” Nines complained. “How do you know she was there for Alumaria?”

Gavin chewed on the inside of his cheek, wondering how to word it delicately. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, humming a little for good measure. “Well… Tina— Do you know Tina? Chick from the precinct, more in love with her space heater and blanket than any sane human being should be?”

“Gavin,” Nines said flatly. “You’re deflecting.”

“Yeah, well…” He hissed out a breath and resigned himself to biting the fucking bullet. “There isn’t a delicate fucking way to say that Tina is a raging lesbian and bonded with Dahlia the Escort over their shared romantic woes with women, during which Dahlia came clean about how she was hooking for a rich, aloof lady who was a cut above any of the men she sees regularly.”

Nines didn’t sputter, per se, but he sure as shit didn’t look all that grounded as he turned away from Gavin and stammered, “That… That could be anyone—”

Gavin turned his head and pressed down on the break, coming up to a stop sign. He gave Nines a disparaging look. “Anyone? Really? You think Dahlia was talking about _any_ rich, aloof lady when she told Tina that the money was good, but what really made it great was how into _biting_ the chick was?” Gavin snorted, facing forward to push off from the stop when no other cars were in sight. “Not many hookers wear full collars with their evening dresses, Nines. Not unless they’re hiding some pretty intense hickies underneath.”

“Well, that’s…” Nines frowned, crossing his arms against his chest. “Alright, that’s compelling. But still, there could be more to it than meets the eye.”

“Uh huh,” Gavin grunted, peering out along the street as he slowed the car to a crawl. Dahlia had a tendency to take the bus stop at the end of this street, and it was nearing four a.m., her usual time to call it a night. They could park along the road and wait for her to catch the last bus and—

“Oh, fuck yes,” he murmured, grinning from ear to ear. He put the car into park and pointed out the window at a figure wobbling down the sidewalk. “There she is. Man, I think we just got lucky for the first time tonight.”

“Oh, really?” Nines leaned forward, following the line of Gavin’s hand. He narrowed his eyes, his cheek skimming past the side of Gavin’s hand. The touch was cold, brief. Gavin dropped his hand like a rock and swallowed. “That’s her?”

Clearing his throat, Gavin nodded. “Yeah,” he rasped. “That’s her.”

“Alright then.” Nines unbuckled his seatbelt, reaching a hand for the door handle. “Let’s do this.”

“Actually… how about I do this next one on my own?” Gavin said, catching Nines by the shoulder before he could get out of the car.

Nines looked at him, frowning already. “It’s not safe.”

Gavin shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s not as if anyone who knows anything will talk to you if they know you’re a vampire. I think if we want any shot of this working in our favor, we need me to run point.” That couple had been proof enough of that already. Gavin ran a hand through his hair, watching Dahlia stumble down the far street with all the grace of the intoxicated. “I doubt an escort will be all that eager to talk to a cop much either, but it’s worth trying.”

“Worth trying up until she pulls a knife or a gun on you, certainly.” The vampire crossed his arms petulantly. “Is that what you want, Gavin?”

“I dunno, would you cry if I got stabbed?” he snorted, patting down his front until he felt his badge clipped to his belt. His gun was strapped to his shoulder beneath his jacket. He’d learned well enough from last time not to go without it anymore, and he tugged aside his coat to show it to Nines. “Really, I think I’m fine. Hell, I’ll leave the keys in here with you even. Come charging in if you think something’s wrong, but let me try this my way first.”

“Gavin.”

Gavin raised a brow. “Nines.”

Nines frowned before he sighed. His shoulders deflated. He averted his eyes and turned away. “Just… be careful then,” he said, looking out at Dahlia. She was a block away from her bus stop now, but she kept pausing to readjust her dress. “Most people aren’t what they seem.”

There was plenty of room there to make a joke out of the situation, out of Nines’s fear. If Gavin hadn’t spent the better part of the evening listening to Nines outline exactly how and why he was right, he might’ve done just that. But, he had. He’d listened and learned and Gavin let out a breath before patting Nines on the shoulder. “I’ll be careful,” he promised, letting his hand fall away. “Keep an eye on me, okay?”

A small smile quirked the corner of Nines’s lip. He blinked and nodded his head, and Gavin turned away before his face could grow hotter than it already was. The cold night air stung at his cheeks as he opened the door and pushed himself onto the street. He closed it as quietly as he could and turned to face the woman he’d come all this way to see.

Dahlia—which wasn’t her real name, or even close to it—was just passing beneath a wane street light on the other side of the road. Her hair was done up in loose curls that were beginning to fall out of the carefully styled updo she’d put it in at the beginning of her evening, and her dress was low cut, short, and strapless, thus necessitating her slow pace. She was paused now on four inch stiletto heels, tugging the dress higher with a curse Gavin could just barely hear. She had a clutch held beneath her arm, the one accessory she bothered to carry.

Gavin approached her slowly, taking in all the small details while he still had a chance to do so. Unlike last month when she’d been brought into the precinct in a skimpy little outfit, she wasn’t wearing the scarf that’d covered her nape from sight. She had a thick collar on, something understated and discrete, but not enough to hide bite marks if she wore any now. Gavin shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, chewing on the inside of his cheek. If he had to guess, he’d say Dahlia hadn’t seen Alumaria in a couple weeks. It’d suck if she couldn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

With a sigh, Gavin pulled a hand free from his pocket to drag it down his face. He wouldn’t get any answers if he didn’t ask, so there really wasn’t anything to do but go for it.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, hey there!” he called out, waving his hand as Dahlia froze in place and spun around. She wobbled dangerously on her heels, catching herself against a lamp post once she caught sight of him. “Yeah, hi. Evenin’. I’ve got some questions to ask—”

“I’m not fucking interested, pal,” Dahlia cut in, tone cold and not playing around. She jerked her head down the street and snapped, “Just move along and we won’t have any problems.”

“Uh, what?” Gavin dropped his hand, glancing in either direction before starting across the road towards her. “I’m not going to fuck with you, alright? I’ve just got some stuff I need to ask you. You’re Dahlia, right?”

It was as if she hadn’t heard him. “I have pepper spray, so don’t you even think of trying _shit_ with me!” she warned, fishing around in her small clutch for the bottle in question. She kept moving as she did, and Gavin was too far away from her to do much more than yelp out a warning when her ankle rolled on the sloped curve of the curb, her heel taking the impact hard. A _snap!_ sounded, ringing out like a gunshot in the cold winter air.  

“Oh, fuckin’ hell,” Gavin huffed, jogging the rest of the way until he shared the sidewalk with her. “Are you alright?”

Dahlia didn’t answer him right away. She was too busy cursing the air blue and black as she stared down at her broken heel with abject fury. Gavin pushed forward, but he froze right away when her head shot up and her hand pulled away from her clutch, anything but empty. “Stay the fuck back,” she said, brandishing the tiny little spray bottle that Gavin knew from prior experience would ruin his night faster than he could blink. “Don’t think I won’t fuck you up with just one heel!”

“Christ, I’m a fucking cop!” Gavin shot back, shoving back his coat to show her the badge clipped to his belt. He pulled it off too for good measure, tossing it to the ground at her feet. “I’m not gonna hurt you, so would you put that away? I just wanted to talk.”

Dahlia blinked, wrinkling her nose as she looked down at his badge. The pepper spray slowly lowered as she crouched down and snatched it from the ground, looking it over critically. She glanced up, then threw it back to him, and Gavin took that as permission to inch his way closer. He picked up his badge and clipped it back into place, then put his hands up and away from his person.

“A cop?” she said suspiciously. “What precinct?”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “DPD Central,” he said, letting his hands fall a bit. “You met my friend a few weeks ago. Tina? Tina Chen? She’s the one who told me about you.”

It was like a switch had been flipped. Dahlia shoved the bottle back into her clutch, her whole face lighting up with delight. “Oh, Tina!” she said, fixing her hair a little as she looked down at her shoe. “Tina… Where is she? Is she with you?”

“Nah, she’s probably at home. It’s our day off today.” Gavin let his hands fall completely. It looked safe to approach now. He’d have to thank Tina for being the prostitute-whisperer next time he saw her. Dahlia wobbled precariously as she shifted around, and Gavin was quick to offer her a hand. “I just wanted to see if you could… What the hell?”

“Hold this,” she said, shoving her clutch into his outstretched hand.

He sighed. “Glad to see you’ve decided to trust me,” Gavin said dryly, tucking it under his arm as Dahlia put all of her attention on her shoe. “Are you sure you’re alright? You didn’t hurt your ankle, right?”

Dahlia looked up, her painted eyes dark and intense in the low light coming off the street lights. She narrowed her eyes and curled back her lips into a weak scowl. “I’m fine,” she insisted, lifting her leg to turn it this way and that. She didn’t wince when she put weight on it, so it probably wasn’t sprained. “What the hell do you want anyway? Since when do cops run around this side of town on foot?”

“Well, that’s—”

She stood up straight before Gavin could finish answering, posture guarded instantly. “I’m not fuckin’ drunk,” she said like an accusation. “If that’s what you stopped me for, I’m telling you, I’m not drunk. You scared me, and I tripped, got it?”

Gavin tried for a disarming smile. “That’s not at all what I’m stopping you for,” he promised. He couldn’t really blame her for being suspicious of that given the last time she got involved with the police. “I actually was looking for you specifically.”

That earned him an eye roll. She put her hand on her hip and looked him up and down. “You must think I’m stupid, huh,” she said, tone cold. “You think I’m gonna do anything for a cop? That’s just asking for trouble, even if you did have a big enough paycheck to make it worth something to me.”

“Oh, Jesus, no,” Gavin rushed, waving off that idea with a hand. “I’m not looking for company. Just information on a client of yours. A Miss Devereaux.”

She let out a burst of laughter, easing up at once. “Ha, nice try, _Officer_ ,” she said, hooking her fingers through the back strap on her heel and tugging it off her foot. “I don’t talk about clients to anyone, least of all to the boys in blue. Come back with a warrant— or better yet, don’t come back at all.”

Gavin offered her his hand when she stumbled a little on the uneven sidewalk. She took it this time with a roll of her eyes, steadying herself as she pulled her clutch out from under Gavin’s arm and tucked it beneath her own again. “So, she _was_ a client of yours,” Gavin murmured, smirking a little when Dahlia glanced back at him with a frown on her face. “That’s good to know. Helpful even.”

Dahlia pursed her painted lips. She rested more weight on his arm as she went ahead and settled her stocking-clad foot on the sidewalk to pull the other heel off as well. “Yeah, well, that’s me,” she muttered, glaring at her ruined heels. “Helpful Dahlia. I should put it on my business card.”

“If you do, you could always use me as a reference,” Gavin offered, retreating his arm once she was back to standing on her own. He put his hands in his pockets too for good measure. “So long as you live up to the name, of course. Really, I’ve only got a couple of questions. It’d help me out a lot if you could answer them.”

Dahlia gave him a piercing sort of look, one that simultaneously questioned Gavin’s intelligence as well as his sincerity. “You know what you’re askin’ me, right?” she prodded, crossing her arms with her heels still dangling from her hooked fingers. The cold had to be bothering her. Dressed like that, there was no way it wasn’t. She was made of tougher stuff than Gavin to have her practically bare feet on the sidewalk like that and not let the discomfort show. She raised a perfectly bleached eyebrow. “You know _who_ you’re askin’ me about, right?”

“Alumaria Devereaux,” Gavin said easily. The name was surprisingly fun to say. “I’m familiar, but I could always know more.”

She snorted. “I just bet you could.” Dahlia frowned again, glancing around them furtively. She drummed her fingers on her arms, the sharp points of her painted nails glistening wetly in the dim light given off by the streetlights overhead. Gavin glanced down at her feet again, still impressed. He looked back up when she cleared her throat.

She popped her hip when she knew she had his attention. Her gaze was locked somewhere far off. “What… sort of questions do you got?” she asked, her jaw tensing. She glanced at him quickly. “Not that I’m gonna answer them. Just… What is it you want to know? She’s… not in trouble, is she?”

Gavin sucked in a bracing lungful of icy air. Play it cool, a voice like Nines’s recited in his ear. They couldn’t afford to scare her off by coming on too strong. Gavin rolled his shoulders, giving her a smile he hoped looked nonchalant and open. “That’s what I’m hoping to figure out. I’m trying to find someone who may have been in contact with Miss Devereaux. I think she might have… passed something along to them, something she shouldn’t have. Do you know if there’s been anyone new in her life recently? Someone she might have spoken about or introduced you to?”

Dahlia furrowed her brow, sucking on her bottom lip. She tapped her foot on the ground and looked off at the bus stop she was clearly working her way towards. “There were always people she kept close to her,” Dahlia said, shifting her bare feet and curling her toes against the cement. “Maria was just… like that. She flitted around like a hummingbird,” she said, smiling to herself. “Beautiful and untouchable. I caught her attention for a bit too. Best few months of my life, that.”

“You sound like you were close,” Gavin murmured.

Dahlia raised her head with a smile, shrugging. “I don’t think you can be close to a woman like that.”

“Did you notice anyone new around her? Anyone she might have favored more than others?”

Her smile turned bitter. She crossed her arms tight and bared her teeth a bit. “Yeah. There was someone. I didn’t know his name, but he caught her attention in a way I’d never seen before.”

“Do you know what he looked like?” He didn’t need to ask to know that Dahlia hadn’t been fond of whoever it was who managed to steal the Luminary’s attention away from her. But then again, that seemed to be a running theme tonight. Alumaria Devereaux had left a string of forgotten toys in her wake. “Any traits, behaviors, anything at all that would give me an idea of who it was?” It said something that there had been anyone capable of stealing her attention so completely, especially in a way that made her throw away all common sense.

Gavin let out a short breath. Nines was proof enough of what happened when a vampire threw away common sense, and something told him Alumaria hadn’t done it for a good reason either.

Dahlia looked as bitter as his thoughts had turned. “Yeah, well,” she bit, glaring down at the pavement. “There’s not much I can give you in that direction. I never met the guy; couple of girls I work with during group parties mentioned him to me.” She glanced up at Gavin, her expression dripping with resignation. “They were so apologetic about it, bless their hearts. Said I’d been replaced.”

“Did they say why?”

She snorted. “How the hell would they know? How the hell would any of us know? You’ve never met Maria, have you, Officer?” she said, barely pausing long enough for Gavin to nod before going on. “She’s not like anyone you’ve ever met, you got it? She’s special, and if she likes you, then you can count on there being something special about you too.”

Ryker’s voice echoed back to Gavin, tickling the back of his mind like a persistent itch. _“My guess is the youngest. Never could quite stand her and her fixations.”_ He furrowed his brow. “Special? Special how?” He swore, if this was just another way of saying kink shit, he was going to march back to the car and make Nines take over—

“They said he was strange,” Dahlia whispered, her voice nearly lost in the cold of the night. Fragile in a sense as she stared out at the empty street, her teeth sunken deeply into her bottom lip. “Intense. Maria always liked intensity. She would say she couldn’t trust she saw the real you if she wasn’t shaking in her boots when you looked at her. Really looked at her.” Dahlia lifted a hand and skimmed her fingers past her temple. Gavin thought she might be tucking some more hair behind her ear, but then she looked at him.

She really _looked_ at him, and Gavin sucked in a cold breath of air when her entire demeanor changed in an instant.

It was fear that struck Gavin, but an almost overwhelming sensation of awareness that this small, barefoot woman was someone he shouldn’t underestimate. He blinked, shifting backwards infinitesimally. Dahlia smiled like she noticed, turning her gaze back to the ground. The sensation eased once her attention shifted, and Gavin let out his breath in a burst of fog.

“See?” she said softly, still staring at the ground. “That used to drive Maria wild. She’d coo and pet my cheek, praising me for being so… so _different._ She loved the different. The strange.” Her lips twisted upwards, cloying and bitter. “She said she’d been alive long enough that she was bored to death of the mundane. If those girls weren’t pulling my leg, then that’s who you need to look for, Officer.”

She looked at him steadily, the rouge the brightest color on her cheeks. “Someone who could draw Maria’s eye and keep it more than I ever could. That’s who you want.”

Gavin’s tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He swallowed, then nodded, clearing his throat enough to get out, “And that’s as much as you can tell me?”

“That’s as much as I know, Officer,” she said with a loose shrug.

“And you don’t know any way of learning any more? Any leads I should look into next?” It felt like a long shot to ask, but with Nines refusing to ask his brother, Gavin was pressed for options at this point. “Hell, do you have any way to contact her directly? You were close to her at one point, right?”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t been called to see her in awhile, and in my occupation that tends to mean don’t go calling yourself,” Dahlia said, looking up at Gavin with ruefully watery eyes. “Is she… She’s alright, right?” It hit Gavin in the gut how much shorter she was without her heels. The fire and fury from before had all but vanished over the course of their conversation. She shivered. She finally felt the cold.

Swallowing hard, Gavin tried to do more than just shrug away her question. “I…” He wasn’t sure. He had no way of knowing without Nines to tell him what to expect, and as far as he knew, Alumaria was being held somewhere for the crime of illegal fledgling creation.

He let out a sigh and looked at Dahlia. When it came down to it, they were both pretty similar. Just two humans caught up in something a whole hell of a lot bigger than either of them. Caught up in a tide they couldn’t outswim. Gavin rubbed at the back of his neck. He tried for a smile that he could tell from the start that Dahlia didn’t buy, even for a second. Gavin opened his mouth to say something.

“Don’t bother,” Dahlia whispered, shaking her head as she brought her hand up to rub at her eyes. It smeared her eyeliner, blurring it like smoke against the tawny brown of her skin. “I read you loud and clear.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Gavin offered. _I’m sorry,_ he didn’t say.

“Ha. Yeah. Bet there’s still hope.” She let her hand fall, a weak smile on her painted lips. Her attention drifted over Gavin’s shoulder. Crunching asphalt and squeaking brakes signalled the bus’s arrival. The light from the headlights bathed the street in washed out white. Dahlia looked at Gavin, then looked at the ground. “We done here, Officer?”

Probably not. There was still so much left to learn. Only… Gavin didn’t have it in him to ask her to stay and miss the last bus of the night. He dipped his head and nodded it. “Yeah,” he said, the word pulled from him in a haggard breath. “Yeah, we’re done. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” she murmured, drifting past him to stand on the curb as the bus pulled up in lurching, screeching jerks. The door opened with another rust-covered hiss. Dahlia looked over her shoulder, her broken heels still hanging limply from her fingers. “Just help her if she’s still able to be helped.”

Gavin didn’t have a response to that. His throat felt tight for some reason, his heart thundering away in his ears loud enough to blot out the sound of the driver asking him if he was staying or going. He stared at the chipped paint of the bus, his eyes smarting at the glint of the light against the red surface. It looked like blood glistening in a puddle. Wet, fresh blood.

“Hey, buddy!” the driver shouted, dragging Gavin out of the thought. He blinked to awareness and stared up at the scruffy, overweight driver. “Piss or get off the pot!”

“Fuck off already,” Gavin threw back at him, sticking up his middle finger as he backed away from the bus. He lifted his gaze higher and caught sight of Dahlia staring down at him from her seat by the window. She looked… tired, and then she looked away.

The bus door closed with a pneumatic hiss. He waited until the bus pulled away from the curb, its brilliant red tail lights disappearing into the darkness, before pulling his phone from his pocket. He keyed into the lock screen and hovered his thumb over Nines’s name. With a tap he was calling him, bouncing on his toes to keep warm. The phone rang one and a half times before Nines picked up.

“Gavin?” that smooth, rich voice sang in his ear. Gavin smiled weakly into the cold air, a shiver rolling down his spine at the sound alone. It felt… nice hearing that voice right now. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s golden,” he said, turning his gaze towards the sky. No stars for them. The glow of the city lights tinged the sooty clouds orange, a sight Gavin had grown familiar with over the years. He’d lived his whole life in this city, and nothing looked quite like home more than that dark, murky sky. “Dahlia got on her bus and I’ve got some new angles for us to go over.”

A pause. “Does that mean we’re done? Are you coming back to the car now?”

Gavin hummed. He lowered his phone from his ear to check the time. Not even six yet. He bit at his lip and put the phone back to his ear. “Nah, I think we’ve still got time to check the last name.” It wouldn’t take long anyway. They were in the same neighborhood as it was, and there was a good chance the guy was probably asleep anyway. “I wanna check it first, then we can call it a night.” Or day, in Nines’s case.  

“Let’s get to it then. Come back to the car.” Gavin raised a brow at that. Nines almost sounded impatient. Huh.

“Actually, I’m pretty close to the last address right now,” Gavin said, crossing the street and reading the building numbers as he went. The cold stung at his cheeks. The adrenaline kept him warm. “I left the keys with you, so pull around and moved down a block or two. I’ll check the last place and then we’ll meet back up and head out.”

Nines was silent for a moment. Then, Gavin heard the sound of the car door opening and closing. “What’s the address?” he asked, the subtle beeps tinny and quiet through the phone speaker as Nines turned on the car and put it in drive. That had to be a first, Gavin thought. Nines not arguing with him over something.

Gavin rattled the address off for him and finished the call with one last reminder to wait for him. “It won’t take long,” he said, coming up the steps to the house in question.

“Be careful, Gavin,” Nines said quietly. “Don’t take chances if you can help it.”

Snorting, Gavin grinned. “Me? Never. See you in a bit, Nines,” he said, hanging up with a skim of his thumb. He shoved his phone back into his pocket and stared at the door in front of him. He lifted his hand and rapped on the door when he didn’t see a doorbell.

There was more to him wanting to do this alone than just the vampire angle of it all. Nines had been very poignant about asking how he knew these contacts were legit, how he knew they weren’t threats themselves. For the first two, Gavin had pretty compelling reasons. His contacts were vetted, the whole photograph thing… He didn’t have that for this one. He’d gotten this last address from a reporter he knew who was pretty in the know when it came to high society. It’d only taken a promise of a favor to get access to some invitation books the Devereaux’s kept.

He hadn’t asked how she’d gotten ahold of them. All he’d asked was what names on it didn’t match the rest and whether or not they had addresses attached to them too. There’d been a few new names, a few interesting addresses, but only one had really stuck out to Gavin, and there’d been no way to vet the name for vampirism beyond doing what Gavin was doing now.

Oh well. What Nines didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and even if it tried to hurt Gavin, he had his gun on him. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

A few minutes went by of Gavin rolling on the balls of his feet, bouncing to keep warm. No answer, huh. Well, that wasn’t entirely unexpected. The window he could see looked dark, so there was a good chance they were either sleeping or out. Gavin let out a sigh that filled the immediate air with mist, shoving his hands into his pockets. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, looking down at the battered welcome mat. Now what? Back to the car? They got some information from Dahlia, and that was better than nothing when it came down to it.

He was in the middle of reaching for his phone when he heard a click sound in front of him. Gavin blinked, looking up just as the door opened a crack. Huh. Alright then.

“What the hell, did you forget your keys aga… Oh.” Dark, red-rimmed eyes stared at Gavin from behind the door. It opened a bit more, revealing a pale, drawn face. “Um. Hello. Who are you?”

Gavin didn’t answer right away. The man was young, looking closer to twenty than thirty. His hair was a sandy brown, his eyes a bright, almost striking blue. Where Nines’s were winter cold, this guy had ocean deep. His skin was pale as if he hadn’t seen the sun in a few weeks, and drawn like he hadn’t slept much either in that time. All in all, he looked kinda shrimpy. Gavin had about half a head on him and at least fifty pounds.

With wild eyes like that, he also looked a bit like a crackpot, and that was what gave Gavin some pause. Still, he put on a pleasant smile and inclined his head, knowing it was too late to call for backup now. “My name is Detective Morrison from the DPD,” he recited evenly, carefully assessing the guy’s reaction to that and to the badge he flashed a second later. His brow furrowed when the guy didn’t even twitch. “I’m investigating a case and I’d like to ask you some questions. Do you have a minute to talk?”

The guy glanced past Gavin’s shoulder as if he expected there to be someone else lingering just behind him. Gavin, paranoid as he was, looked too, seeing nothing but empty street and the headlights in the distance that probably signalled Nines was on his way. Gavin faced forward again, raising a brow. The guy’s pale hands were nearly death gripping the door.

But then, the guy relaxed, smiling up at Gavin with almost angelic intensity. “Of course, Detective,” he said, stepping back to open the door fully. He gestured inside. “After you.”

Strictly speaking, entering an unknown person’s house in the dead of night with no backup close by wasn’t what the Academy taught its prospective officers. Gavin hesitated at the threshold, glancing around the dark interior before entering. “Is there… anyone else in the house with you?” he asked, self-preservation telling him to despite the fact that it made him come across as the serial killer. “Family? Girlfriend?” Hell, he’d settle for a pet at this point.

The guy turned, a smile on his face. “I live here alone,” he said, cocking his head to the side. The way he looked at Gavin was beyond intense. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” Gavin deflected, biting the bullet and stepping on inside. “It’s a big place, figured you might have company.” And it was. The place was a lot bigger on the inside than the facade had led him to believe. It was a bit old and antiquey for his taste, but there was a bit of an old world charm in the wood finishings and carved bannister attached to the staircase ahead of the entryway. The decor was understated, and a little dusty too. Gavin walked further inside and heard the door close behind him. He did his best not to sneeze when the movement unsettled a few motes of dust into the air.

He startled when the guy brushed past him and set off to the left of the stairs. “Sadly, it’s just me here,” he tossed over his shoulder. Gavin shrugged off his momentary unease and followed him into what he saw was a quaint little living room, complete with a picture window and a television that had been muted on some old black and white movie. A bowl of popcorn was even perched on the coffee table next to the armchair the man sat down in. He folded his hands between his knees, nodding at the couch and then up at Gavin. “Please make yourself at home.”

“Um, thanks.” He sat down, his hand smoothing over what looked and felt like a hand-knitted throw. Huh. This place suited a grandma more than some young college age kid, but whatever. He was here for a reason, so that was all he needed to concern himself with. “First things first, I should probably tell you what I’m here for, right?”

The kid smiled. Man, not a good smile. It was too big, too toothy. It’d look cute on a child, but on an adult… “That would be helpful, yes.”

Hmm. “I’m investigating a case surrounding the acquaintances of a prominent socialite named Alumaria Devereaux,” he began, frowning when the kid didn’t so much as flinch. That wasn’t to say he had no reaction to the name; he did. Only, the reaction was to lean forward, eyes wide like an owl, his toothy smile making a resurgence as he nodded in understanding. Gavin shifted in his seat. Weird fucking guy. “She, uh, she’s known to have a lot of interesting characters in her inner circles. I was hoping you might know of anyone she’s met recently, someone she may have fixated on.”

“Why would I know something about that?” the man asked, cocking his head to the side. He reached for a cell phone resting on the arm of his chair, fiddling with it for a moment before setting it back down. Checking his messages maybe. “I’m no one special.”

Gavin grimaced a little. “One of my contacts informed me that this address was a recipient of an invitation to one of Miss Devereaux’s recent parties.” The most recent in fact, before they stopped occurring entirely. He’d assumed she’d been apprehended by the Enforcers after that. “You’re one of the only new attendants to be invited in six months of parties, so I figured you might have an idea. Do you recall seeing anyone there that Miss Devereaux seemed particularly interested in? Anyone at all?”

The guy leaned back in his seat. He glanced at the television as the screen flickered to a brightly lit commercial. “I’m sorry to say it, but _I_ didn’t attend the party you’re referring to,” he said, smoothly bringing his attention back onto Gavin. Polite as it was to look someone in the eye when you spoke to them, Gavin couldn’t help but wish he’d kept his focus on the tv instead. “The invitation was probably addressed to the wrong house. I threw it away when I didn’t recognize the name on the envelope.”

Shit. “Do you recall the name?” he asked, threading his hair through his fingers as he resigned himself to another dead end. Weird as he was, his gut told him that this man wasn’t the one he was looking for. With how he smiled, Gavin could tell there was nothing strange about his teeth, and even if there was something teeth-wise he wasn’t seeing… He just didn’t feel like a vampire for starters. He lacked the intensity Nines had or the raw fear-inducing presence that Ryker had held. He just came off as a creepy guy, and in Gavin’s line of work, there was no shortage of creepy, overzealous people. It didn’t make them serial killers.

“No, sorry,” the guy replied, shaking his head sadly. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Detective? You look like you’ve had a long night.”

Gavin nearly laughed. He settled for hanging his head, kneading tiredly at his eyes. “You’ve no fuckin’ clue—” A vibration in his pocket cut him off. There was only one person who’d be texting him at a time like this, so he knew better than to ignore it. “Ah, sorry,” Gavin mumbled, fishing for his phone in his jacket. “Hold that thought.” He didn’t pause to see the kid nod or anything. He just thumbed over the lockscreen and brought up the message from the one person he knew would be texting him at a time like this.

_Nines_

 

  * __Dawn is in 30 minutes. Please make this quick.__



 

Shit. Gavin checked the time, then swore again, only this time under his breath. He’d completely spaced on that little caveat to investigating with Nines. They were over forty-five minutes from Nines’s place, and there was no fuckin’ way he could make it home before the sun rose if he took off on foot now. Gavin clenched his jaw and rattled off a quick affirmative before shoving the phone back into his pocket. He lifted his head and smiled at his host. Another dead end then.

“You’ve been really helpful,” Gavin said, standing up. The guy hadn’t been, actually, but that was another thing they taught you in cop school. Always thank your witnesses and leads. They’d remember it later if they realized they’d left something out the first time around. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”

The guy stared at him, a ripple of _something_ rolling down Gavin’s spine in response. “So, that’s a no to the coffee then?” He folded his arms in front of his chest. The house creaked in the way old houses always did, but damn if it didn’t sound like the footsteps of a ghost gliding across the floor above their heads. Gavin would have to make it a point to ask Nines if ghosts existed too. With vampires already in the mix, anything was possible these days.

“Sorry, duty calls,” Gavin said. He’d had more than enough coffee tonight as it was, and frankly? Frankly, Gavin just wanted to be free of this house and that stare. “It’s already late as it is. I don’t wanna keep you up any longer than I have already, Mr…?”

“Oh, my name is Devon, Devon Price, and it was no trouble at all,” he said, rising to his feet as well with his pale, thin hand outstretched. “I hope your case proves fruitful, Detective.”

Gavin swallowed, shaking the cold-yet-still-human-temperature hand. Another floorboard squeaked above his head. He lifted his foot and made himself move, letting go of the handshake as quickly as he could while still being polite. “Yeah,” he murmured, keeping his eyes on the guy in front of him. Maybe the guy had a cat. Gavin liked the idea of that more than he liked the idea of there being a ghost or other person waltzing around above his head. “Me too.”

Without a word, Gavin found himself guided towards the door and gestured outside. The sky was a burning orange now, tinged through with notes of gray and early morning frost. The cold was like a shock to the system, jumpstarting Gavin in an instant. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, licking at his chapped lips.

“Thanks again,” he said, wondering how he could feel so small in front of a guy this slight. “I appreciate it.”

Devon smiled, inclining his head. “Anytime, Officer,” he said, closing the door.

Huh. He’d called him detective all the other times. Whatever. It was late and titles didn’t mean much when they weren’t even real to begin with. Gavin stared at the door’s chipped, peeling paint for a moment, then turned back towards the street as his phone began to buzz incessantly inside his pocket. Nines was waiting on him, he reminded himself, pushing himself off the porch and towards the familiar sight of his car parked at the end of the street. He needed to get Nines somewhere safe. The case could wait until tomorrow night.

They’d made… not a ton of progress, but some. More than they had before, and that was something worth celebrating. Gavin snorted at the thought, jogging the last few yards to the car. He could pop some bottles and blood bags with Nines, toss them back and party like the undead, and commiserate over uncooperative witnesses and creepy fucking guys living in haunted houses.

“It’s about time you got back here,” Nines muttered the second Gavin slid himself into the driver’s seat. He sat up straight, looking decidedly nervous at the rapidly greying sky. “It’s nearly dawn.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied, turning on the engine and hitting the gas a bit harder than he usually did. “Lucky for you I don’t live that far from here.”

There’d be time to figure out the rest later. The only thing that mattered now was making sure Nines didn’t end up as an attractive pile of ash in his car before they managed to figure out what the hell was going on in this case.


	10. Chapter 10

It wasn’t the first time Nines had raced the sun, and as he saw the approaching sight of Gavin’s underground parking garage in front of them, he let out a sigh of relief, knowing he’d live to do it again. It wasn’t an entirely comforting thought, but when the alternative was combusting in the light of the first sunrise he’d paid witness to in two decades, Nines could say easily which he preferred.

Gavin’s apartment building was… nice. Nicer than Nines’s, though that was hardly a challenge in any sense of the word. It was located in a pleasant side of town, with clean streets outside it and the sort of early morning bustle that signalled a general air of safety and security amongst the inhabitants. The weather was cold but people were still out and about, cleaning the snow and frost from their cars, salting the front walks, tending to the sort of activities that only existed before the rest of the world stirred. Nines didn’t have long to take it all in. Gavin was driving fast, solely focused on getting them below ground. Nines turned in his seat and watched the pleasant scene disappear as darkness and cement overtook them. He blinked. It was gone.

A low whoop tore his attention forward. Nines looked at Gavin, the corner of his lips quirking upwards when the man fist pumped the air. “Even got time to spare!” Gavin declared, navigating the parking garage with a familiarity that showed. He pulled up to the stairs quickly, parking in a reserved spot Nines had to assume belonged to him. There was time to spare, sure, but not enough to make Nines comfortable enough to pause to ask questions like that.

They didn’t bother saying much of anything for the next few minutes. They got out of the car and darted into the building, climbing the three flights of stairs it took to get to Gavin’s floor. Nines only caught glimpses of the place Gavin called home. Carpeted hallways, shiny brass numbers on the doors. Welcome mats were situated at almost every apartment; it couldn’t be more different from Nines’s place, that was for sure.

“Right here, right here,” Gavin called out, jogging the last few feet to the door labeled 349. He was flushed all over and sweating just a bit, not quite out of breath but a bit closer to winded than he had been when they started on the ground floor. He shoved his hand into his pockets, searching for the ring of keys he’d had only a moment ago. He crowed when he finally found them. “Alright, here we go.”

“We need to move fast,” Nines said, pressing his back against the wall as Gavin fumbled for the specific key that would open the door. He looked nervously at the pane of glass at the end of the hall. The sky outside was a distressingly light shade of grey, growing brighter by the second. “Is there a window in your front room?”·

“Fuck, yeah.” The lock finally yielded. “A big one. The only rooms that don’t have one are the bathroom or my closet.” He looked at Nines with a grimace on his face. “You had covers on your windows. Can we do that here?”

Gavin opened the door and Nines could tell just from the changing shadows on the floor that they still had a little bit of time left. “Do you have trash bags? Thick blankets?” He moved away from the wall and pushed Gavin inside, shutting the door after he’d followed him in.

“Uh, yeah, I think so… Hey, are you alright?”

Nines blinked slowly, eyes drifting around the room. The scent that lingered on Gavin was much stronger here, nearly overwhelming him entirely. He hadn’t been in many places that felt like this. At least, not in a very, very long while. The space was decently sized, not massive by any stretch of the imagination, but far from cramped either. The front room was dominated by a smattering of chairs and a sofa, a large entertainment center, and against a wall, a fireplace gated off with an iron grate. The walls were speckled with framed pictures, with posters for bands and awards that upon closer inspection appeared to be from the police academy. Everything around him came in warm neutral tones, slashes of red and wood to make it all the warmer.

“Nines? Hey, you with me?”

Nines lifted his head and looked at Gavin backlit by the large picture window against the far wall. Gavin didn’t have a great view as far as views went, but it was still impressive. It made Gavin look impressive. It also made it abundantly clear that they didn’t have time to waste taking in the decor. “Yeah, yeah, I’m…” He trailed off, closing the door behind him. He glanced around. There was a tiny little window in the open concept kitchen nearby. “We need to cover the big window and that one,” he said, jerking his head towards the kitchen. “Once they’re covered I can stay out here.” As easy as it would be to just bury himself in the depths of Gavin’s closet, he couldn’t say he wanted to spend the day shuttered away like an all too apt proverbial skeleton just waiting to be stumbled upon by a sleep-deprived Gavin come evening.

To his credit, Gavin didn’t argue or delay. “Right,” he said, nodding his head. He darted into the kitchen and knelt down out of sight. Nines quickly made for the blinds drawn away from the picture window, pulling them shut. It wouldn’t be enough—not even close to enough—but it’d buy them a couple more minutes. Once they were shut, he turned around. Gavin was just rising to his feet from within the tidy kitchen, a box of black garbage bags in hand and a roll of duct tape in the other.

He threw the tape at Nines. Nines caught it easily. He tore off a strip of tape and held out a hand for the bag Gavin had at the ready. They worked together, alternating with who tore tape and who held what to get the bags over the window before the thin light of dawn could bleed through the blinds.

Their shoulders brushed every now and again. Their elbows would bump, their hips jostling. Gavin was a warm line against Nines’s side every inch of the way. He chanced a glance at Gavin, but he just found him staring intensely at the corner of the window that didn’t seem to want to be covered up. Gavin was on his toes, cursing softly under his breath.

It drew Nines’s gaze, and he looked at Gavin. Really looked at him. There were deep bags under Gavin’s eyes, his usually kempt stubble a bit darker and thicker than it had been at the start of the night. Clothes rumpled, hands shaking slightly from residual caffeine. Nines was reminded that he’d drank two coffees before. It was probably the only thing keeping him upright right now. He was tired, but he was still fighting with hanging the bag anyway.

“Thank you,” Nines heard himself say.

Gavin paused, looking at him. He screwed up his face in confusion. “Thank you? For what?” He looked up at the corner of the window and swore loudly when it refused to stick in place. “Oh, come on,” he grunted. “It’s like this thing has a mind of its own—”

“Mrao!”

It was Nines’s turn to be confused. He glanced behind him, then startled when something brushed his ankle. He looked down. He felt his entire body perk up at what he saw on the floor between them.

“Goddammit, Tildie,” Gavin muttered, nearly tripping over the small, furry body weaving between his legs. He tacked up his corner of the bag and then left the rest to Nines. “You couldn’t wait for me to make sure our guest doesn’t burst into flames before screaming at me? Where are your fucking manners?”

Nines succeeded in fastening the last part in place after a fumble. It wasn’t his fault, that. Tildie was meowing loudly, the sound only getting louder when Gavin dipped down and picked her up from the floor to cradle her in his arms like a fussy baby. She was just as cute at the pictures had let on, and even the sleep tugging at his limbs couldn’t deter him from gravitating closer the moment he assured that he wouldn’t be bursting into flames today.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Gavin rattled off, sounding far too used to this sort of thing to be embarrassed about how noisy Tildie was being. He cradled her close and kissed her ears, angling her towards Nines once he finished with the window and looked at the cat properly. “Well, this is the she-demon I’ve sold my heart to. Tildie, meet Nines. Nines, Tildie.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Tildie,” Nines echoed, reaching out his hand slowly to let her sniff his fingers. To his surprise—and his utter delight—she nosed at them eagerly, sniffing and nuzzling and welcoming his touch without issue. Nines smiled brightly, something warm blooming in his chest. He’d worried a bit about how she might feel about him. Some animals sensed his kind, realizing before humans usually did that they weren’t quite normal, more predator than benign. Tildie wriggled in Gavin’s arms, her tail flopping limply over a forearm to hang down like a limp sock. She began to purr when Nines scratched behind her ears. If she knew he wasn’t quite human, she clearly didn’t mind one bit.

“Wow, I think she likes you,” Gavin said without much surprise in his voice. He snorted, rolling his eyes. “Imagine that.”

Nines ran his hand down her neck, stroking over her smooth back, then darting his fingers along her stomach to tickle her. “Is that surprising?” he wondered, utterly charmed by Tildie’s throaty meow. She had so much personality with a meow like that, and he didn’t miss how the scar over her nose matched the one on Gavin’s.

“Nah, not really.” Gavin bounced her in his arms a little, leaning down to kiss the paw that came up to press against his cheek. Nines almost didn’t hear him when he spoke, “It’s hard to imagine anything not liking you.”

The world stilled. Nines stiffened, and Gavin froze too, his eyes widening as he realized what he’d just said. Tildie meowed impatiently when the attention stopped with it, and Gavin was quick to cough like he hadn’t meant to say what he’d just said out loud.

“Gavin?” Nines whispered. “What did you—?”  

“So, uh, nearly daylight,” he deflected, looking at the blocked off window as if only just realizing the time. He glanced at Nines, then looked a little closer. “Oh, fuck, where are my manners? You can’t sleep in that shit. Here, take this,” Gavin said, rolling Tildie into Nines’s arms as if he were passing him a sack of potatoes instead of a living creature. Nines gaped a little, eyes locked on Tildie’s, but before he could argue or voice his concerns, Gavin was disappearing down the hallway.

“Gavin, where are you going?” Nines called after him, doing his best to keep the worry out of his voice. He’d never held a cat before—he and Connor had never been permitted pets growing up, and even after their parents’ deaths they’d never felt themselves with the time or confidence to change that. Tildie lay fairly immobile in his arms, watching him with curious green eyes.

“Um… hello,” he whispered, his breath hitching when he felt her begin to purr anew. The sound vibrated through his ribs, warm and reassuring. “What’s gotten into him?” He looked at the hallway Gavin had disappeared down. He could vaguely hear the sound of drawers opening, clothing being tossed aside. Nines pressed his lips to Tildie’s soft ear. “Is he always this odd, or is it just me?”

Tildie didn’t answer, but then again he hadn’t really expected her to be much help in this venture. She did nuzzle his cheek though, and that helped assuage whatever it was he was feeling now. With Gavin around, being _himself,_ Nines didn’t even know what to call half the feelings he felt these days. They were warm, though. Warm and… not unpleasant. Massively confusing, sure, but nothing in his life was ever straight forward.

He was just about to press a kiss to one of the cat’s ears when he heard Gavin finally emerge from the depths of his bedroom. Nines lifted his head, furrowing his brow when he saw Gavin’s hands were full. “What—”

“Here,” Gavin cut in, tossing some clothes over Nines’s head as he kept moving. He brushed past him entirely, something Nines only felt because he clipped his shoulder, and disappeared into the kitchen. Nines held Tildie in the crook of his arm, pulling the garments off his head with the other. “Change into those before you turn all crispy,” Gavin ordered, dragging out another trash bag to cover up the window in the kitchen. “You’ve got like ten minutes before the sun rises and I doubt you want to fall asleep wearing jeans that are painted on.”

Nines didn’t bother telling him he’d fallen asleep in worse things than his skinny jeans and clubwear. He’d been turned in something similar, and when it came down to it, dying in an outfit like this was far worse than sleeping in it could ever be. “Down you go, sweetheart,” he murmured to Tildie, setting her carefully on the sofa closest to him. He gave her one last stroke to the ears as she settled patiently into a cute puddle of fur and fluff, then looked at the clothing Gavin had deigned to give him.

A nondescript hoodie, a pair of old sleep pants. Nines shook out the hoodie and gave it a cursory sniff when he saw Gavin wasn’t looking his way. Dust, age, but beneath it all the scent of Gavin himself. The front boasted the name of Gavin’s old police academy. This was something he probably trained in back then. Something that he kept with him after he graduated and became a police officer.

Nines rubbed the soft cotton between his fingers. The grey of it was worn but still strong. Nines glanced down at Tildie, his rapt audience, and tried not to be embarrassed by the scrutiny. He’d changed in front of her owner only a few hours ago, but somehow this time felt more embarrassing than that had. Maybe because spite wasn’t behind it. That always tended to dampen things considerably, reminding Nines that he wasn’t quite as confident as he probably came off.

“Thanks,” he said a little too late to matter.

Gavin grunted off in the kitchen, clearly trying not to make a big deal out of it.

It… wasn’t a big deal. It was just… This was something friends did for one another. The clothes smelled like Gavin, but that was fine. _Fine._ Nines dragged them on perfunctorily, closing his eyes and holding his breath to keep himself from noticing it more than he probably should. The shirt was tight— Gavin was broader than him, but shorter. The pants would be short no matter what he did to them, so Nines eschewed them completely, sticking to his boxer briefs. He folded his pants and shirt, drifting away from the living room to rest them on a bar stool at the island.

“So, uh…” Nines looked up, looking at Gavin on the other side of the counter. The window was covered, the trash bag in place. Without the excuse of something to do, Gavin held himself tightly, looking like a man who was trying valiantly not to look in a direction he clearly wanted to look. “Do I need to worry about you going all corpsy on me? Will you just… fall over once the sun goes down, or…?”

Nines glanced towards the clock on the stove. He had only a few scant minutes left, and he made his way into the depths of the living room and assessed the chairs and sofa. “I can fight it if I need to, but not for long,” he said, choosing a chair tucked into the corner. Not quite out of sight, but hopefully out of mind. He didn’t want to make this more awkward for Gavin than it had to be. He sat down and rested his hands on the arm rests. “You won’t be able to wake me up. I won’t breathe or move. It’s normal, so don’t freak out, alright?”

“Normal is really relative when it comes to you,” he answered, following him into the living room. He glanced over at the sofa where Tildie was perched, then smiled when she hopped off to meet him halfway.

“Sorry.” Nines looked at the hardwood floor between his feet. “You’re handling all of this really well, for what it’s worth.” It couldn’t be easy having to worry about whether or not you’d wake up to your guest incinerated on your sofa from an improperly blocked window.

“Don’t go apologizing. You didn’t do anything.” Gavin finally shucked his jacket, the exhaustion catching up with him. He draped it over the back of the sofa and rolled his eyes when Tildie meowed from the floor. “Unlike some people,” he said pointedly, looking only at her. He leaned down and prodded her scarred nose. “Rude little girl. Bad cat. Bane of my existence.”

Nines laughed. He couldn’t help it. He felt… relaxed here. Safe. He sank into the chair and folded his hands in his lap loosely. “She’s a sweetheart,” he said honestly. “The only thing she needs to apologize for is for being so cute.”

Gavin fidgeted behind the sofa. His heart was loud in the quiet of the room. Tildie wove her way beneath some of the furniture, her bottlebrush tail high in the air as she paused by the sofa and then jumped onto the cushions once more. From there she hopped onto the back of it, rubbing against Gavin’s chest. “Yeah, she is. She’s… She’s really cute,” he said quietly, running his hand along Tildie’s back. Her purr was loud and throaty. “Do you need anything else?”

One more minute. Nines blinked, his eyelids getting heavier by the second. He shook his head. “I’ve done this for years,” he said, finding it a little funny, a little odd. No one had ever asked him something like that. Not for something like this. It was like Gavin cared. Like he truly wanted to help if there was indeed something he could do to help. “It’s nothing new to me.”

“Yeah,” Gavin snorted, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of Tildie’s head, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not still scary dying alone every morning.”

He stiffened, then thawed when unexpected heat bloomed where his quiet heart lay beneath his ribs. His eyes pricked. His face felt hot when he knew it wasn’t possible to feel like that at all. “I… hadn’t thought of it like that.” Nines slouched in his chair. It was comfortable. Warm. Nicer than what he usually had. Better with Gavin there. He smiled lazily at Gavin, not missing how he stared.

A moment passed, Nines growing drowsier by the second. Gavin, on the other hand, sounded anything but tired now. “I can hear your heart, you know,” he mumbled.

Gavin swallowed. He gripped the back of the sofa a little tighter. “Yeah?”

Nines nodded. “‘S loud.” Fast. Utterly human. Utterly… him.

“Go to sleep, Nines,” he heard Gavin murmur. He’d already closed his eyes. “I’ll see you la….”

Later, he supposed. Guessed. Nines succumbed to the call with Gavin’s voice wrapped around him tight, content to leave it at that.

—

Waking up with the dusk was an experience Nines had long become accustomed to over the years—decades—of his specific affliction. It wasn’t… how it had been as a human. He didn’t “wake up” in the same sense as someone living might, bit by bit, pulled from the depths of sleep by noise or movement or anything external. There was no alarm clock to rouse him, no gentle hand to his shoulder to coax him awake.

When a vampire awoke with the setting of the sun, it was an all or nothing affair. Nines was dead, and then he wasn’t. Black, and then aware. He opened his eyes and sucked in a breath he didn’t need to take, but habit was a rough mistress to break when it came to little things like that.

It took a moment to process that he wasn’t lying on his filthy mattress, that he wasn’t staring up at the mildewed and water-stained ceiling of his haven. He was someplace warm, both in temperature and light, with a television and sofa and a mantle full of photographs of faces he didn’t recognize— Well, that wasn’t quite true. He recognized one face in the pictures. He knew the grey eyes that stared back at him, missing a few creases and wrinkles but still so… still so utterly Gavin.

Gavin. Nines sighed, lifting a hand to rub at his eyes. Tried to, at any rate. His arm was trapped beneath something, and when he looked down he saw that someone had tossed a quilted throw over him. On top of that—quite literally—sat a bundle of fur and whiskers that absolutely hadn’t been there when he’d settled in for sleep that morning.

“Tildie?” he whispered, his still-heart giving out an odd little flutter in his chest.

She didn’t answer him. She was fast asleep, her small body rising and falling, her nose and tail twitching errantly with her dreams. Nines sank his teeth into his bottom lip, more than a little overcome with the sound of her heartbeat so loud in his ears. She was so… warm. Such a small thing, but her body heat bled through the blanket covering his legs, warming him in a way he hadn’t felt in longer than he could remember. Nines carefully extracted a hand out from under the blanket, ghosting the tips of his fingers over her ear. It twitched. She didn’t wake. Nines did it again, stifling an embarrassing sound in his throat before it could come out and disturb her rest.

This was… certainly something. He ran his hand down her back, smiling at the way she relaxed further. So cute. “Did you want to keep me company?” he asked her quietly, not expecting an answer. She really seemed to like him. That was answer enough for him.

Nines kept up the petting as he looked around the room. There were sounds, rhythmic ones, occurring somewhere behind him. The kitchen. Nines blinked, shifting a little beneath Tildie. She lifted her head and yawned widely, stretching out her front legs. “Wanna go see what that is?” he mumbled, cupping her little head in his hand. She nosed at his fingers, licking them with a scratchy, wet tongue. Nines smiled, taking that as a yes.

It took a little navigating to unwrap himself from the blanket without sending Tildie to the floor. Nines struggled not to blush when he realized Gavin must have tucked him in thoroughly after he’d succumbed to the rest. With Tildie under one arm and the blanket untangled with the other, Nines carefully stood. His knees creaked and his body ached subtly; Tildie stared at him carefully as he rose up on his toes to stretch, and when he touched back on the ground, he did so with a content sigh. Waking up the rest of himself usually took some time. At least that hadn’t changed after he’d been turned.

From this angle he could see Gavin was indeed in the kitchen. Making dinner? Breakfast? Nines glanced down at Tildie and moved a little closer, rubbing his cheek against the soft collar of Gavin’s old hoodie. What was he making? Did he cook often? He moved towards the island and smiled when Gavin looked up from his cutting board.

“Good morning,” Nines whispered, his lips against Tildie’s soft head. She smelled nice. Warm and comfortable, utterly content.

“Oh, you’re… awake.” Color rushed Gavin’s cheeks, and he was quick to avert his eyes, drawing them back down to whatever it was he was chopping on the counter. “Morning.” A pot of water boiled away on the stove behind him, and the room was filled with the comforting scent of… was that garlic?

The scene was almost horrifically domestic. Gavin tucked in his kitchen, barefoot and shirtless and only in a pair of loose sleep pants, chopping away at some garlic as he prepared himself what was clearly dinner now that Nines got a good look at what he was doing. He had his phone propped up on the empty pasta box. From the tiny speakers came the soft sound of swing music. The old kind. The kind Nines could recall his father listening to while he worked in his office after supper had been cleaned up and put away.

“I’m awake,” Nines said a beat too late. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, letting Tildie down when she began to fuss. She darted over to Gavin and wove between his legs, mewing up a storm. Nines smiled at the display. “I think she wants some pasta.”

It took a minute for Gavin to reply. Long enough that Nines looked up, expecting to see Gavin busy with something, just occupied enough to stall his answer, but instead he found Gavin staring straight at him, eyes wide, lips parted a little. His cheeks were a rosy red, which may have been because of the warm kitchen. Nines cocked his head a little and furrowed his brow, his smile slipping away. Gavin sucked in a breath, then looked down at his cutting board. He cleared his throat. He started chopping again.

“She’s still got food in her bowl,” Gavin said with a little more gruffness than was strictly necessary. He looked down at his cat and frowned at her, nudging her off her hind legs so she toppled onto the rug situated in front of the sink. “Garlic isn’t for kitties, is it? No, you’re just a little fat ass who wants to blame _me_ for you oversleeping, huh? You blaming me for you sleeping through breakfast?”

Tildie let out a raspy meow, not bothering to argue in her defense or even lift herself from her new comfortable bed. She was flopped on her side, her tail brushing the floor in slow, somnolent wags. Gavin snorted and set down his knife, leaning over her so he could rinse his hands. “Yeah,” he murmured. “That’s what I thought.”

Nines felt himself smile again. A tightness in his chest urged him to do it, bubbling up with warmth he couldn’t swallow down. “What are you making?” he asked, watching Gavin crouch down to pull out a bag of cat food from the depths of a cabinet. Tildie did her best to let her excitement be known, crying loudly and constantly as Gavin poured out a measure of food into her waiting food bowl, filling the empty portions and pleasing Tildie’s clearly discerning standards.

“It’s uh… Fuck, it’s Italian and pretty much impossible to pronounce.” He shooed Tildie off his thigh and directed her towards her breakfast, rolling up the top of the food bag as he rose to his full height. He drifted back into the kitchen and put away the bag, giving his hands another rinse before moving back to his knife and garlic. “Like, pasta algo ‘n oil? Don’t fuckin’ quote me on that, I slept through French in high school, so my grasp of other languages leaves a lot to be desired.”

He’d taken French? That was cute. “Pasta aglio e olio,” Nines corrected gently. He brought his forearms to the counter, leaning on it as he watched Gavin scrape the garlic into a neat pile on the cutting board and then turn to the stove to pour some oil into a saute pan.

“Oh, Mister Hoity-Toity vampire speaks Italian, does he?” Gavin snarked, looking far too comfortable in his own skin considering it was nearly all on display.

Nines shrugged. The corner of his lip curled up into a half smile. “I took Spanish in high school, so not quite. I’ve just had it before,” he said, letting his gaze drift off to the other side of the kitchen where a stand mixer was resting beneath its cloth cover. Did Gavin do much baking? Those things were expensive…

“Oh, yeah?” Gavin collected the garlic on the blade of his chef’s knife and dropped it into the heated oil. The scent of garlic grew tenfold, filling the air in a comforting, savory wave. “Where?”

“Italy.”

Gavin twisted his head over his shoulder. “Of course,” he muttered, turning back around to stir his garlic with a spatula. “Of course in fuckin’ Italy. Well, I learned from Youtube, so there.”

“Yours smells just as good,” he offered, propping his head up on his closed fist. Gavin’s hoodie wasn’t overly large on him, but it was big enough that he could gather the sleeve over his hand. There were even hand-cut holes at the ends for a thumb to loop through. “Where’s your parsley?”

The spatula went to the holder in the middle of the stovetop as Gavin reached for a wrapped bundle by the sink. He lifted it and gave it a shake. “Right here,” he said, unwrapping it to reveal the fresh green herbs. He gave them a rinse and then moved them to the cutting board, leaving his garlic to cook.

Nines’s eyes widened a bit when Gavin took the knife in hand and gave the parsley a rough chop. “You’re pretty confident with a knife,” he commented. Most homecooks wouldn’t wield theirs so casually, but Gavin made it look effortless.

Gavin glanced up at him, a smirk taking root on his lips. He gave the knife a little twirl and narrowly avoided dropping it on his foot. “Shit,” he spat, his cheeks going red. “Ignore that.”

There was no helping it. Nines laughed. He tried to cover his mouth with the sleeve of his pilfered hoodie, but even that couldn’t smother the sound. Gavin squawked indignantly. “I guess that really does rule out you as a suspect,” he teased, looking at Gavin. When he blushed, the color traveled down his neck and tinged his hairy chest pink. “And not just for this case. You’d make a terrible murderer.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he muttered, fixing his grip on his knife to chop up his parsley into fine bits. He seemed focused on it for a moment; a few seconds later he stiffened, glancing up at Nines. “Actually, that reminds me. I got a call from a buddy at the precinct while we were both out,” Gavin said, tone growing morose as he plucked stems from his parsley.

“Oh?” The smile slowly faded from Nines’s face. He brought his hands down on the counter, fingers tapping a quick staccato against the hard surface. It didn’t sound like it was a good call.

Gavin let out a sigh. He kept his eyes on his growing pile of stems. “Another body was found in some ditch about twenty minutes from where we were last night. Same M.O., same pattern.” Grey eyes met Nines’s for the barest hint of a moment. “I asked this time about blood piles and my buddy said he hadn’t thought to check that far from the scene for something like that.”

Nines looked at the pattern on the faux granite countertop. He traced the shapes of a dark slash of brown with the tip of a finger. It fit the feeding pattern they’d established, so it really shouldn’t surprise him that another body had been found. He wasn’t sure why his stomach felt so tight all of a sudden, because it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t surprise him.

“Hey, you alright?”

Nines lifted his head. “Yes,” he said, looking away when Gavin just frowned. His eyes settled on the boiling pot of water on the stove. “Your pot is about to boil over.”

It distracted Gavin enough to give him a chance to breathe. Nines pushed away from the counter and moved around to the otherside, running his eyes over all of Gavin’s hard work. The chopped parsley, the waiting spices, the bowl he’d set out for the finished product. He looked at the fridge and the mismatched magnets dotting its front, pinning important reminders to the black appliance. An invitation to a wedding in a month, a photograph of Gavin with the woman Nines recognized from his visit to the precinct. Tina, Gavin had said. A friend.

They were friends too now. Gavin had said it before, and he’d… helped Nines. He’d extended him more courtesy than most of his clan would have if he’d found himself stranded away from his haven with sunrise imminent. Most clans were considerate of such things. If you needed shelter, someone in your clan would extend an offer if they were near enough to help. Nines knew well enough that not many would do such a thing for him. They’d rather see him ash than help him in a moment of need.

But Gavin had helped, and he’d acted like it was second nature. The most obvious thing. Nines looked down at the hoodie he wore now, running his hand down the fading logo. Gavin had a way of carrying him along with his drive, his self-assuredness. They’d made progress, and Nines had thought they were close to finding the culprit. But now there was another body. Another person lay dead in the cold ground and they had no name. They had no real leads—

“Hey, try this,” a voice ordered, and Nines blinked when a fork twined round with shiny, sauced spaghetti drifted in front of his face. Gavin held it out to him, one hand holding the fork while the other was open beneath it in case of drips. The scar slashed across the bridge of Gavin’s nose stood out in stark relief atop the blush darkening his cheeks. “I’m shit at telling if pasta is done.”

Nines, too surprised to do anything else, opened his mouth and let Gavin press the food into his mouth.

First impressions were about as lukewarm as he’d figured they’d be given he hadn’t eaten anything solid in close to twenty years. The pasta was more or less just texture in his mouth, the garlic and oil a strangely subtle and muted accompaniment that didn’t tickle his tastebuds or entice him in any way. Nines chewed once, twice, then shrugged. Gavin lowered his hands and frowned.

“Just a shrug? The fuck does that mean?” He glanced back at his pan. “Did I not salt the water enough?”

Gathering the food into his cheek, Nines gave another shrug. “I haven’t eaten pasta in decades, Gavin,” he reminded him, finding it a little funny that he’d forgotten. “There’s enough garlic in it that I can taste it, so that probably means it’s seasoned enough—”

Grey eyes widened in horror before Nines could finish speaking. “Holy shit, spit it out!” Gavin said suddenly, tossing down his fork with more force than was probably necessary.

Nines raised a brow, doing as he was told. It wasn’t as if he could swallow it anyway, so into the sink it went. “What’s gotten into you now?” he wondered, licking at his lips curiously. He couldn’t really appreciate the taste of the olive oil the way a human might, but he could still feel the slick residue it left on his tongue, his lips. “You didn’t mess it up, did— Gavin, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Gavin had his hand on the detachable sink faucet. He was pointing it in Nines’s direction like he had a plan in mind that Nines wasn’t going to like. “Open your mouth,” he ordered, his tone cool and patently forced, like he was striving to remain calm and keep Nines calm too amidst disaster. “Do you know how much garlic was in that? We need to wash it out, call poison control, something.”

Nines stared at him blankly. The faucet head rose to eye level. He covered Gavin’s hand with his own, pushing it back down and away from his face. “Do you think I’m in danger of dying?” he asked slowly, lifting a brow incredulously. “Did you… Did you really think I’d let you feed me something that would hurt me?”

The hand on the faucet fought him, struggling to raise back up. “I don’t know,” Gavin snarled. It seemed like he just wanted to fight the grip for the sake of fighting it, and not because he wanted to douse Nines like a kitchen fire. “How am I supposed to know when you just let me shove things in your mouth?”

That was… That wasn’t the point, and Nines didn’t want to dissect any part of that. He settled on mockery instead. “Help. Police. I’m dying,” he said flatly, laughing a little when Gavin finally settled down. He let go of Gavin’s hand when he figured he wasn’t in danger of receiving an impromptu shower. “Oh, woe is me, to have survived this many years only to be brought down by the burnt garlic in your saute pan.”

“Well, excuse fucking me for being... Wait, burnt garlic—?” Gavin whipped around only to let out an angry cry. “What the fuck!” He dragged the pan off the burner, glaring at the brown slivers swimming in the tawny oil. “God, it’s like a two second thing on this fucking recipe. You look away and everything’s up in smoke.”

 _Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten distracted,_ Nines wanted to say. He didn’t though. Not when Gavin had been so willing to look at him, talk with him, fuss over him. He swallowed, choosing to say something else instead.

“So,” he said quietly. “About the leads from before.”

Gavin pushed his pan onto a cool burner. “What about them?” He turned off the heat, then groused a little at the state of his garlic. It wasn’t actually burnt. He probably wouldn’t need to start over again. Gavin glanced over his shoulder.

Nines raised a brow. “Did you learn anything?” he asked dryly. There hadn’t been time to go over things before. They’d needed to rush here, then bar the windows. If a body hadn’t just been found, Nines might have been tempted not to bring it up just yet. There was something comforting in the thought of ignoring the case for the evening, of just spending some time with Gavin and watching him go about his life here at home where he seemed so comfortable and unguarded. But… someone had died. It would be irresponsible and selfish to ignore it. “That last name you checked. Did anything come from it?”

Nines tried not to frown. They were here to solve the case, not drift around enjoying one another’s company.

A sigh answered him. “Not a ton,” Gavin muttered, reaching for the colander in a shelf above his head. “The address came from some journalist I know who deals with the society pages. I figured since it was on the guest books they might know something, but turns out the homeowner was just the recipient of an incorrectly addressed invitation.”

Oh. “That’s disappointing,” Nines said, drumming his fingers on the countertop. Gavin put the colander in the sink and—after spooning out a ladleful of the pasta water into the saute pan— reached for his pot, pouring out the pasta and water in a rush of steam that curled the longish strands of hair along his forehead. They’d struck out with every lead then, with only minimal information to guide them through the next stage of the investigation. He’d hoped they would have encountered at least one vampire, someone who would actually know something more than the humans had, but then again, he supposed he should be grateful that they hadn’t—

“Wait,” he said, cutting off his line of thought before it distracted him completely. He narrowed his eyes at Gavin, expression flattening. “You told me you knew all the leads were human. Did you…” He felt his fangs prod at his bottom lip. “Gavin, did you go into some strange person’s house without knowing if they were human or not?”

Snorting, Gavin grabbed his abandoned fork and poured the colander full of pasta into the waiting saute pan. “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you. You never would’ve let me go alone if you thought it was a vamp. Which,” he emphasized, “it wasn’t. Just some creepy nutjob with insomnia. Nothin’ illegal or preternatural about that.”

Nines frowned, taking a step right into Gavin’s space. “Did you shower?” he asked, looking Gavin up and down. He snatched the empty colander from Gavin’s hand and set it aside, just to make sure he wouldn’t be distracted.

“Did I what now?”

“Did you shower?” Nines repeated, leaning in to put his face near Gavin’s skin. There was an over-abundance to work with, but with the scent of garlic and parsley in the air, it was harder than it needed to be to scent Gavin properly.

Gavin’s lower back met the counter’s edge. He put his hands on Nines’s biceps, not pushing but not staying static either. “No,” he said, coloring a bit. “There wasn’t time this morning, so I figured I would after I ate. Why?”

Nines closed his eyes, shoving his nose to Gavin’s bare collar. If he focused he could just smell the scent of other people, of the places he’d been, the buildings he’d gone into. Gavin’s heart lurched audibly in his chest, his pulse firing off rabbit-fast. “I can’t smell another vampire on you,” he murmured, opening his eyes when Gavin’s hands tightened around his arms. He glanced at him, then paused. He realized how close they’d gotten. He realized where he had his face.

He realized the moment Gavin realized it too. The scent of him turned sharply hot, darker. Nines’s eyes pricked with the urge to dilate. He sucked in an ill advised breath and struggled to recall when he’d last fed.

“Uh, Nines?” Gavin croaked, his voice as dry as bone. He didn’t try to push him away. He didn’t try to pull him closer either. “Are you… Is everything alright? Did you uh, smell something weird?”

He shook his head but it felt like a lie. He licked his lips, suddenly so… dry. His mouth, his throat, his tongue. “Just me,” he said in a harsh whisper, looking up to meet Gavin’s dark eyes. “I’m the only vampire I smell on you.”

“That’s good, right?” Gavin pressed, the scent of his arousal spiking sharply. So sharply that it stung Nines’s nose, burning him somewhere he refused to consider.

It was something. Nines closed his eyes and forced himself to loosen his grip on Gavin’s arms. He pulled away an inch, then another. He inhaled deeply through his mouth, striving to ignore the shaky breath that sounded in front of him when Gavin caught sight of his fangs. “I’m fine,” Nines said, more for himself than for Gavin. “It’s fine.”

Something brushed his hip. Nines looked down and saw Gavin’s hand settle over it, the heat of him burning through the hoodie in seconds to sear him like the sun. “Are you?” Gavin asked, struggling to meet his eye. “Is something wrong? Do you need…” He drifted off, sucking in a quick breath. “I… wanna help you, Nines. If you need it.”

Nines’s eyes drifted, settling on the tip of Gavin’s clavicle. He wetted his lips. It wasn’t oil he tasted now, but something… Just _something._ Something that could be more. “I’m okay,” he said, forcing himself to meet Gavin’s eyes. “You’ve done more than… I can’t...”

“Can’t what?” A frown marred Gavin’s features. He swallowed, the bob of his Adam’s apple drawing Nines’s eyes like a gunshot. “What do you need? I want to help.”

He did, didn’t he? He truly, sincerely did. Nines listed forward, his shoulders hunching. Gavin’s scent was all over this place, filling his head, inviting him in. Into his home, his car, his life. He _cared._ Cared enough to hunt him down, to apologize for something he hadn’t even known he’d done wrong. Nines bit down harshly on the inside of his cheek. His mouth tasted like old blood, stale and stagnant. The kind of blood waiting for him at home now.

“Uh, Nines?” Gavin whispered, eyes flicking down in bursts, caught between looking at him and at… “You’ve got my arm there.”

He did. Nines had Gavin’s arm in his hand, his fingers curled around a thick wrist. The percussive kiss of Gavin’s blood pounding against the thin skin of his inner wrist tickled the tips of Nines’s fingers. He inhaled deeply. He moved closer.

“Nines?” Gavin tugged at his arm. Nines held him tighter. The blood flowed faster. His heart pounded loud—

Tildie appeared at their feet just in time to prevent stupidity from ruining everything. Her warbling meow cut through the tension like an unfortunately garbled knife. Nines took a step away from Gavin, letting his hands fall to the counter behind him. Tildie wove between his legs, nuzzling and rubbing, but her eyes were locked on Gavin, her cries reaching a fever pitch when Gavin swore and gave in. He scooped her up and tucked her in the crook of his arm, fingers stroking the soft fur on her stomach errantly.

It was a reminder. A reminder to rein it in, to focus. Nines blinked rapidly, turning his eyes towards any part of the place that wasn't Gavin. Only… everything here was Gavin. This was his home, his space. His haven. Every breath was tinged in Gavin’s warmth. Nines held his breath. He didn’t want to let it out of his lungs.

“I need to go,” he said before he quite realized he’d unglued his tongue from the roof of his dust-dry mouth. He stepped back, then turned around completely to dart around the counter and towards the bar stool that held his clothing. He pulled on his jeans as quickly as he could. His shirt fell to the floor beneath the chair, and in the moment it felt like an acceptable loss.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Gavin called out, still carrying his cat as he rounded the counter after him. His food was forgotten on the stove, the makings of his comfortable evening abandoned to chase after a creature that didn’t know the meaning of any of it anymore— hadn’t in years, decades. “Nines, what the hell? Where are you going? I thought we were… I thought we were good.”

Nines shoved his feet into his shoes as he moved towards the door. Gavin almost sounded hurt, and that was somehow worse than the stabbing need burning in his throat. “Home,” he said, even though the word tasted wrong on his tongue. Wrong like bad blood, like acid and bile, like something he put up with when he knew there was better out there. “I need to go home.”

“Well, give me a second to put on some clothes,” Gavin said, looking around as if he’d find a pair of pants and a shirt within arm’s reach. “I’ll give you a ride.”

A ride. The car. Gavin’s scent, the small space, the sound of his heartbeat so _loud_ in Nines’s ears as he talked and talked and had no _clue_ what it was doing to Nines.

Nines nearly laughed. The sound was strangled somewhere in his throat. Good. If it got out he was sure it would sound manic, desperate. “It’s fine,” he said instead, not even bothering to tie the laces as he stumbled forward, looking at Gavin over his shoulder. “I can walk.” He needed to walk. He needed to clear his head, and more than anything, he needed to feed sooner rather than later, especially if he kept getting distracted by the sight of Gavin like this, warm, barefoot, so much _skin—_

“Dude, it’s no trouble.” The man was frowning now, drifting closer, closer, ever closer. One step, one lunge. It wouldn’t take much. Gavin might even lik—

Nines shook his head to banish the thoughts, covering his face with his hand until he felt more composed than he probably looked. “Thanks,” he said, “but really. I’m fine.”

Gavin frowned. He followed him towards the door, Tildie nestled happily in his arms. “Will I see you later tonight?” he asked, curling his toes into the carpet. “There’s a new body to check out, new evidence to lick…”

There was. Oh, god, there was. Nines rubbed at his eyes. “I don’t think I can tonight,” he murmured, lowering his hand but keeping his gaze elsewhere, away from Gavin. “You should eat your dinner. It’ll go cold.”

“I own a fuckin’ microwave,” he replied, tone tinged with irritation. “Seriously. I’ve got all of tonight off. It’s the perfect time to check things out—”

“Gavin,” Nines said a little sharply, more than brisk. Gavin looked at him, Tildie turning to look too, and that just… took the wind out of Nines. He let out a breath and ran his hand down his face. “Sorry. I’m just a little… thirsty.” Just thirsty. That was it. That was _all_ it was.

“Oh.” Gavin shifted Tildie higher in his arms. “Alright. Okay. That makes sense. You need to go… deal with that, right?”

Nines didn’t uncover his face. He just nodded.

“We’ll talk later then?”

He nodded again. It made sense, all of this. They’d only just made up. Gavin probably was scared he’d ghost him again. The thing was, Nines wasn’t even sure if he could bring himself to do that again, even if he’d wanted to. Gavin’s scent was rubbed into his skin now. He had a feeling not even a scalding hot shower would be enough to scour it from him after he’d slept in it, woken up in it. He spun on his heel and lowered his hand, staring at the door.

“Nines.”

He turned. Gavin had come closer, Tildie falling asleep in his arms. The man averted his eyes, sucked on his bottom lip. When he looked at Nines again, he was slightly flushed. His heart danced. “Feel free to come back,” he said with a shrug too casual to be true. “The door’s always open.”

“...Thank you,” Nines said when he didn’t know what else there was to say to something like that. He squeezed the doorknob in his hand. It was cool against his skin. He turned towards the hall. His throat burned, and Gavin just stood there, half naked, so open, and so… accommodating.

His voice was a croak when he managed the, “Have a good night, Gavin,” on his lips. He didn’t give Gavin a chance to reply to it for fear of what he’d sound like if he did. Kind, most likely. Understanding. And that was just…

Nines closed the door behind him. It was just more than he could handle right now with his throat this parched. When he couldn’t help but wonder if Gavin would be as accommodating if he’d asked for something a little more intimate than a place to sleep the day away. For something more than just his friendship. His company.

He swallowed hard. His throat was so dry.

“Don’t think about it,” he whispered. It wouldn’t do him any good. “Just stop.”

After all… he’d gotten sick of the taste of masochism a long time ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all should give Gavin's dinner a try, it's super cheap and easy to make and it's really fucking good. check out this video for the recipe I use, and keep an eye out for the next chapter when it comes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJUiWdM__Qw&t=0s&index=2&list=LLUe3JOi84NKM81g_WSKZgfQ


	11. Chapter 11

Gavin expected not to see Nines again for another three weeks after the way they parted the last time they got together. Sure, he hadn’t put his foot so far down his throat that he could kick his own ass like he had before, but he also couldn’t say things hadn’t been… weird following Nines’s hasty ass retreat. The dude hadn’t even stayed for dinner or breakfast or whatever you called it when you kept to bat-hours. 

He told himself that it was only to be expected. Nines had mentioned how he needed to…  _ feed,  _ and clearly that was something he didn’t want Gavin paying witness too. He got it. He really did. There were some things better left unseen, so Gavin went back to his rapidly cooling food and ate alone, just like he did every night. He pushed Tildie onto the couch so her face wasn’t in his bowl, grabbed for the remote, and pulled up  _ The Lion King. _

Tildie looked at the screen, then looked at him. Gavin swallowed down a mouthful of pasta and frowned right on back at her.

“What?” he asked, hating how much he wanted to avoid his own cat’s fucking stare. “It’s not like you’re the only one allowed to like this movie.” So what if this was his go-to pick-me-up movie? He felt fine. He stabbed his fork into the bowl and twisted like a madman.  _ Absolutely  _ fine. 

The rest of his night was spent in a similar state of  _ fine.  _ He ate with more gusto than he typically did, glowering at the television as the hyenas sang their songs and danced their stupid dances. Tildie stood up on her back legs in front of the tv, front paws on the shelf to press her nose to the screen when Simba pranced around the jungle, eating grubs and all that good shit. By the time the big climax came about, Gavin had nearly calmed down. The normality of it all was too pervasive for him to hold onto his frustrations for long. 

_ Ding! _

He reached for his phone blindly, digging it out from between some cushions as Simba squared up with Scar. He keyed in his passcode blindly, only messing up twice, and then glanced down at the message.

_ Nines _

 

  * __See you next weekend?__



 

Gavin sat up so fast that he nearly sent his empty bowl flying. A mad grin tugged at his lips. Thank god.  _ Yeah,  _ he typed back, leaning into the cushions with new energy.  _ Definitely.  _

He breezed through the movie, heart pounding like a drum. He positively raced through his work week too, every nerve alight, every muscle primed for the weekend ahead. It passed by in a blur of color, and for once he took his regular patrols and desk duty as it was scheduled, letting Tina get back to her own shit. A few more days and the supervisors were bound to grow wise to how much time Gavin was putting into casework that wasn’t his to work on. With his attention back on his own shit, he managed to fill out more paperwork than he thought was humanly possible. 

Thank God for coffee. Thank anybody  _ listening  _ for coffee. 

When he wasn’t doing paperwork, every spare bit of time he had was spent preparing for Nines’s next visit. He made case folders and briefs, printed out write ups and medical examiner reports, and compiled every ounce of material he had at his disposal until he was swimming in information. It was busy work. Bitch work. It kept him busy though, and the days disappeared like ephemera in the wake of it. 

Best of all, he had some company while he did it. Nines didn’t show his face during work hours, but he’d taken to texting Gavin each day, even if it wasn’t about the case.  _ What are you doing? How is your night going? Has Tildie gotten into trouble today?  _ They were nice little breaks, and more than that they were reassurances that Nines hadn’t disappeared into the darkness, never to be seen again. Gavin had come too close to that already. He wasn’t in the mood of going through it again, so he enjoyed it instead. If he replied faster than Nines did, well… then he was just excited. Being excited wasn’t a crime. It was  _ fine.  _

In the wake of their conversations and the the distraction of preparing the case information, the weekend had arrived before he even saw it coming. Gavin came home from his Friday shift, fumbled through his nightly routine, and face planted on his bed. He awoke ten hours later, cleaned, and waited for a knock on the door. 

Roughly an hour after sunset, it came. 

“I’ve got so much for us to look over,” Gavin said after letting the vampire in, plopping down on the sofa to showcase the fruits of his labor. He’d already brewed up a pot of coffee. He was ready to fucking go. 

“I’m sure you do,” Nines answered, carrying in a plain white box that nearly distracted Gavin from the rest of him. “You’ve turned your living room into a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream.”  _ Nearly  _ being the operative word. 

Nines looked great, just as he always did. Gavin’s heart pounded in his chest at the sight. God, how many pairs of tight jeans did Nines own? It was like any money he made from being a vampire cop went to his wardrobe instead of his shitty ass apartment. “Well, sometimes you have to obsess a little before you find what you’re looking for,” he muttered. He stopped staring when Tildie yowled for attention. 

The box—which turned out to be a box of assorted  _ donuts  _ of all things—sat open on the table between them, precariously balanced on a stack of folders and Gavin’s laptop keyboard. Nines, when asked, had told him it was a thank you for Gavin’s hospitality. Normally Gavin would shut that sort of behavior down at the door. What kind of friend did shit like that? It was one thing to bring beer to share or a pizza to hunch over as they worked, but Nines couldn’t eat it. He didn’t get anything out of it. 

That little voice in the back of Gavin’s head told him there was a perfectly logical reason for it, but he smothered that like an unwanted thought. There was no way Nines wanted to take care of him or some wishy washy reason like that. Nah, he probably felt like he owed Gavin something. For his time, access to his home, hell, probably even for the time he spent holding Tildie. It was complete and utter bullshit, and Gavin needed to make sure he got it through his thick head that he didn’t owe him a goddamn thing. 

If anything, Gavin owed Nines for putting up with him. For holding his hand through all this vampire nonsense and… yeah. Just… yeah. 

Gavin shook off the thought and reached for a donut either way. God, he was pathetic. He was going to eat the whole box, and he’d resent Nines for every single bite. Maybe it was vampiric bullshit at work, or maybe Nines just had him pegged that well, but somehow he had managed to remember that Gavin was a complete slut for a cinnamon-sugar powdered donut, the fucker. He’d mentioned it in passing, just some one-off aside as they texted. It was almost unfair sometimes how perfect one person could be. 

“Alright, so here’s what we’ve got,” he said, taking a bite out of the donut. His shirt immediately became dusted in sugar, and he swore through his mouthful as he carefully brushed the worst of it onto an open casefile before it could get on his sofa. Tildie’s shedding already gave him enough mess to vacuum every week. He didn’t need to add ants to his list of annoyances too. 

“The latest victim fits the same profile of all the others before him. Young, down on his luck sex worker out too late while on the wrong side of town.” Gavin carefully tugged one of the folders out from beneath the donut box, bracing it with his knee to make sure it didn’t topple over and really give him something to bitch about later. He handed the file to Nines and tried not to look too closely at how Nines was wearing the hoodie he had lent him the week before. Nines hadn’t bothered on commenting on it when he came in, so Gavin figured he should play it cool. It looked good on him anyway. Nice and… tight. 

Nines opened the file and read through the reports inside. The photographs were already pinned to the boards, the pertinent notes stuck to it with sticky notes. Orange for physical factors, yellow for personal details, green for theories. The green notes were all very lacking. Uncomfortably lacking. 

“It says this happened only two blocks from that last house you visited,” the vampire observed, glancing over the top of the folder at Gavin. He had an odd look on his face. 

“Yeah.” He was probably getting weird again about the danger. “The report says the victim died just before sunrise too. I think it’s safe to say the vampire probably lives in the area.”

“Or found somewhere else to spend the day,” Nines added, the discomfort shifting into a slight smile. He looked towards the cork board then, scanning over the carefully tacked pictures and the string drawn between them to show connections, lines of thought, and the like. He moved closer to it. “You wrote down all of the clan information,” he remarked. 

“I wanted to be thorough.” It’d been for his own edification too. After the first night of Nines running through things with him, he’d realized pretty quickly there was too much to know to trust himself to remember it all on his own. He’d written down what he recalled and added to it as new information came up. An entire portion of the board had been dedicated just to parsing out the vampire hierarchy and where it left them in the scope of their investigation. 

_ Not much, _ he thought sardonically. Alumaria was probably already dead, and Nines seemed no closer to reaching out to his own Luminary contacts now than he had been the day they first met.

“That’s a word for it.” Nines tapped his finger down the lines of string, following one lead to the next. He paused with his finger over the first victim. His brow furrowed. “What are these marks?”

Gavin craned his neck to see. “What marks?”

His finger pointed to the first victim, namely her neck. “I don’t remember seeing these on the photographs I had in my file.” He traced the bruising thoughtfully, cocking his head to the side. Compared to the massive, gaping wounds on the opposite side of her neck, the bruises hadn’t seemed all that pressing. 

“Oh, yeah, you probably only got the pictures that the media got ahold of.” Despite all the work they did to keep things out of the press, somehow they always managed to leak regardless. “They focused on the, you know,” he said, making vague gestures at the deep, bloody wounds. “We marked them down as inconsequential though. They didn’t look like strangulation marks, so we just chalked it up to superficial damage.”

Nines stared intently at the photographs, acting as if he hadn’t heard. Gavin furrowed his brow. 

“Is there… something sticking out to you about them?” he asked, lifting himself off the couch to wander over to where Nines stood. The photos in question were of past autopsies, the first few victims at the crime scenes situated how they had been found, and the neatly typed notes the coroners had made on the condition the bodies had been left in. Routine stuff, nothing Gavin didn’t already know. 

“I’m not… sure,” Nines finally replied, turning his head but reluctantly breaking eye contact with the images. “Sorry. What were you saying before?”

Something crinkled over by the coffee table. He turned his head slowly, talking as he checked. “I was just saying that those marks were— Oh, goddamnit, Tildie!” Gavin vaulted over the sofa and grabbed his cat around the belly, jerking her into the air. The box to the donuts fell shut with a soft rattle, but the damage had already been done. “You fucking fatass, you  _ know  _ you’re on a diet,” he grumbled, wiping the pink frosting and sprinkles from her furry little face. Thank God she hadn’t gone for the chocolate ones. Gavin sighed, holding her tight to his chest. “What am I gonna do with you, huh?”

“You… talk to her a lot.”

Gavin looked up, remembering then that he still had company. God, Nines looked good when he smiled. Gavin’s cheeks began to burn. “Yeah, well, how else will she learn?” he mumbled, walking Tildie around the couch and back to the cork boards. “She’s a dumbass who needs to listen to her father for once in her life.” She still had pink on her nose, and Nines, as soon as he was within reach, used the sleeve of his shirt to clean her off a bit better than Gavin had managed to do one-handed. “Thanks,” he said. 

“No problem.” Nines had that soft little smile on his face again, the one that made Gavin’s heart do funny things. 

_ I can hear your heart, you know,  _ Nines’s voice said inside his head, an echo of the last time they’d been together.  _ ‘S fast.  _

Shit. How do you make your heart chill the fuck out? Deep breaths? Calming thoughts? Tildie was purring up a storm in his arms, so maybe that would drown out the sound— 

“I think it’s cute,” Nines said, cutting Gavin’s crisis-in-the-making off before it could gain any more traction. When Gavin just blinked, Nines rolled his eyes fondly and smiled. “You talking to her. I think it’s cute.” 

“You do?” This had to be what having a heart attack felt like. Gavin was worried he might just float away. 

Nines nodded. He leaned against the back of the sofa, crossing his arms in the stolen hoodie, looking better in it than Gavin had ever looked in his  _ life.  _ “Yeah,” he said, looking at Gavin through his lashes. “I really do.”

Gavin swallowed hard. His heart was going a mile a minute and he had no clue how to make it stop. Hell, there probably wasn’t any point in trying; Nines clearly knew, clearly heard it. He turned his head towards the cork board to do what he did best. 

“Yeah, well, as I was saying before this fatass interrupted,” he deflected, bouncing Tildie in his arms for want of something to do, “we figured those marks on the neck were hesitation marks or damage that incurred when the victim fell. Hell,” he snorted, “I heard one of the detectives guess that a neighborhood dog might have even gone at the neck. Complete bullshit, honestly, but all in all we didn’t think it was anything to get hung up over considering all the subsequent victims lacked them.” It wasn’t uncommon to see things like that with a serial killer’s first victim. They had to figure out how they wanted to define themselves before they committed to a traceable M.O.

“So, you think it was just a one-off thing,” Nines said, accepting the topic change easily. He balled up his hand—thumb tucked artfully through the hole in the sweater sleeve—and propped it under his chin, crossing the other arm to give his elbow something to rest on. His eyes were locked on the photographs. He glanced at Gavin for just a moment. “The detective who thought it was a dog is an idiot. Why don’t you have their job if they’re that stupid?”

If Gavin’s arms were empty, he would’ve thrown them up in the air at that. Sweet, sweet validation, hello. He settled on doing something that wouldn’t make Tildie yowl at him, like shrugging. “Who fuckin’ knows? All those jackasses are still convinced its just a regular serial killer. Somethin’ about dental markings and similarities to some killer on the west coast one of the transfer guys dealt with twenty years ago—”

“Dental markings?” Nines cut in, looking at him a little harder this time. “What do you mean?”

Gavin set Tildie on the floor, well away from the donuts. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not vampires. There really was some freakshow on the west coast—a human, I’ll emphasize. They caught the fucker and he didn’t burn on his walk to his morning trial—who got off on biting the shit outta his victims before gutting them. If you ask me, talking about all that is what got the one guy thinking about dog bites… Hey, am I boring you?”

Nines had steadily lost focus as his explanation wore on, his attention drifting back to the photographs on the board. He curled his fingers around his chin, tugging at his bottom lip as he scanned the images with narrowed eyes. Gavin frowned a little. Tildie wove between his legs as he carefully moved closer, joining him in front of the cork board. 

Gavin couldn’t tell what was so fascinating about any of it. These photographs weren’t new, minus the ones he’d just gotten for the latest victim. He’d even printed out some of the photos he’d taken on his cell phone when he’d found the bodies on his own, ones that were a little fresher than the ones the morgue provided for them after forensics had gone through and done its thing. He’d circled in some what he thought were blood piles, but Nines wasn’t looking at them right now. 

“Gavin.”

Gavin startled a little. He blinked, then looked at Nines. “Yeah?”

Nines turned towards him, his eyes locked on his mouth. “Could you open your mouth for me?”

“Can I what now?”

“You heard me.” Nines came a little closer. “Open your mouth.”

“Why do I need to op—ngh!” Gavin sputtered as his chin was seized, Nines holding open his jaw with his thumb shoved inside and flattened along his molars. He tried to jerk his head away, but Nines was too strong. He reeled him in and peered down, looking into his mouth. He traced his finger down Gavin’s teeth, first the back rows and then forward, pressing the pad of his thumb to the points of Gavin’s canines. His blunt nail scraped lightly at his palate. 

What was he doing? What was he trying to accomplish with this? Gavin swallowed hard, saliva pooling in the back of his mouth. Nines furrowed his brow, guiding Gavin’s jaw to close until he bit down on his index finger. It was a stupid thing to think about, but Gavin couldn’t help himself from prodding at his finger with his tongue. Nines’s flesh was cool, smooth. It didn’t taste of salt or sweat. Just… him. Nothing but him. 

“Just as I thought,” Nines muttered a minute, an hour, a lifetime later, letting go of Gavin’s chin. He wiped his fingers on Gavin’s shirt, the rude asshole. “Those marks are human. Someone bit the victim before the vampire did. But not a proper bite. They focused the pressure on the upper teeth alone.” He traced the shape with the tip of his finger. “You can see there isn’t a bottom set here. No wonder the shape confused you.”

Gavin said nothing for a moment. He just stared, clearing his throat like his voice was ruined. “So, we’re just gonna ignore the fact that you just shoved your hand into my mouth? Cool.” It wasn’t cool, but Gavin wasn’t either so there wasn’t much he could do about it. “How do you know it was a human?” He gestured at Nines’s mouth with one hand, dragging the other through his hair as his fought to process the last five minutes of his life. He rubbed at his jaw next. He could still feel Nines’s hand against his skin, cool and soft and— Focus. “How many of you guys do the whole teeth thing that you do when you go beastmode?” 

“When I go… Did you just call it  _ beastmode?”  _ Nines replied, snorting as he shook his head. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Gavin sniped. He was half hard and not in the mood for this. “What do  _ you  _ call it?”

A shrug. “We don’t call it anything. It’s just instinct.” Nines glanced at the photograph again. “All the bloodlines have fangs that are always present. Fledglings, even recent ones, still have sharper than normal canines. If this was just a fledgling trying to hunt on its own, it would have punctured the skin— which it clearly did.” He pointed then to the mangled neck of the first victim. One side had been punctured. The other side was just speckled with abortive marks, flat and partially bruised. Nines tapped at the bruised ones. “This wasn’t a vampire. There  _ was  _ someone else there. At least at this murder.”

The truth of the matter was as good as a bucket of ice water over his head. Gavin cooled down. He sighed. “A human.” 

Nines looked at him. He nodded. “A human.”

That… put a wrench in things. It was telling, but then again, all it did was open up a thousand more possibilities for them to sift through. “Dahlia hadn’t mentioned there being anyone else who caught Devereaux’s eye.” Just the one. “Not to mention the fact that a  _ human  _ tried to feed on our victim too. What the hell is that about?”

Nines didn’t have an answer for him. Just a shrug and a lost little look that told Gavin they were somehow back to square one. 

Fuck. 

“Okay, there has to be a logical explanation for this,” Gavin said, knowing someone had to keep them going else they were likely to just fall into misery together. He began to pace, eyes locked on the carpet, skirting around Tildie every time she tried to trip him with her needy little face. “Why would a human and a vampire go hunting together?”

“I don’t know,” Nines admitted. “Why would a human and a vampire investigate a murder case together?”

Gavin looked at Nines oddly. “Are you trying to make a joke?” It was unfairly difficult to tell. “Because we need to, that’s why.”

Nines stared at the pictures once more. “Maybe they needed too as well. Or… thought they needed to.”

He stopped pacing. “You think the human thought, what? That they were a vampire too?”

Nines looked uncomfortable. He shifted on his feet and dragged his hand through his hair, settling it on the back of his neck. “I don’t know.” He let out a tense breath. “The idea of a fledgling—sireless, ignorant—and a human together, trying to figure things out… I can’t even imagine.” 

It wasn’t ideal. Even Gavin knew that much. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “It doesn’t make much sense. They had to know one another, right? But there was only the one ever noticed at the parties.” He thought back to the lists of invitees, the way they never said  _ plus one.  _ You either had your name on the invitation, or you didn’t. One person went to the party. The other… 

_ I’m sorry to say it, but  _ I _ didn’t attend the party you’re referring to. _

The words echoed through Gavin’s mind, rattling him like rain against a window pane. There was… God, what was it? There was something there, wasn’t there? Something he wasn’t putting together.

“Gavin, what are you—” 

“Shut up.”

Nines furrowed his brow. “Excuse m—”

Gavin held up a hand, clapping it over the vampire’s mouth. He felt like he’d earned it after having Nines’s fingers in his mouth. He stared at the floor, fighting to let the thoughts coalesce. “Shut up; don’t say anything.” He felt Nines grab his wrist, but he didn’t let that distract him. There was something there, something he was missing. Those footsteps, those… Fuck, what was it? What was it that was tripping his alarms so bad? 

Nines yanked his hand away from his mouth. “Gavin.”

Gavin stayed silent. He reached for his phone. He looked for the folder that held what little information he’d gotten about the list of leads they’d already interviewed. Nines let go of his wrist when he tugged—he didn’t have the mental capacity to think about how gently Nines had held his wrist right now—and Gavin vaulted over the sofa again to dig through the pile of folders for the information he  _ knew  _ was there somewhere.

While he dug, he held down his thumb on the home button of his phone, pulling up voice commands. “Call Pussy Galore,” he said. Thank God Tina drew the short straw and had to work this weekend.   

“Wh—  _ Who?”  _

Oh, yeah. Right. Gavin felt his ears begin to burn. “It’s Tina,” he muttered, focusing on the dial tone as his eyes scanned the text. Price, Price, there was the address and the copy of the email he’d gotten from his media contact. “I’ve known her since the Academy. She has me in her phone as Megalodong.” 

He didn’t have the balls to turn his head to see what expression Nines had on his face. It probably was scathing. He’d probably just offended the vampire’s delicate sensibilities and insulted him on some lev— 

“What do you want, Gavin?” Tina’s voice clicked in his ear, stealing his attention from the clusterfuck lying in wait behind him. “Some of us are trying to work here.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “We both know you’re scrolling through pinterest, so don’t give me that shit. I need you to look someone up for me on the civvies database. It’s kinda urgent.”

The sound of her typing took over for a moment. “It better be,” she muttered, and Gavin let himself grin at the easy win. “Alright, what am I searching by? Got a name? Address?”

“Address,” he specified, rattling it off to her as it was written on the page. “Should belong to a Price, Devo—”

“Yeah, yeah, I found her here. Dora Price, age ninety, widowed, caucasian, anything else?”

Gavin balked. “What? No, I said Devon.” He drummed his fingers on the folder, bouncing his leg hard enough to discourage Tildie from crawling into his lap. He’d feel bad about that later. He was too wound up now to settle down. “Who the hell is Dora?”

He could practically hear Tina rolling her shoulders. “How the hell should I know?” she drawled, the sound of her keyboard loud as she retyped the query. “Says it’s under that address, so excuse-fucking-me if I got mixed up.”

“Well, run the name Devon Price then,” Gavin said, frowning hard enough that Nines had come over to see what was going on. Gavin glanced at him, shrugged. Tina tapped away at the keys. 

“Alright, well, there are over a hundred people with that name in Detroit.”

“Did you try checking the—”

Tina sighed loud enough to cut him off. “Yes, Gavin, I was getting to the part where I told you I did in fact cross reference it by family relation to Dora. I did go to the same school you did.”

Gavin couldn’t help but smile. “Well, I’m glad you paid attention that day. What did you find?”

“Ha ha. She’s got three kids with families of their own, and one grandson with the name Devon Price. I don’t know what this family’s fascination with D-names is, but it’s really fucking annoying. Darren, Debra, Derek, oh, shit, there’s even a Demetri. Can you imagine living in that house?”

Rubbing at his eyes, Gavin nodded along. “I don’t know, Terra, how about you tell me?” 

“Hey, don’t bring my sister into this. You know as well as I do that Mom calls us by our middle names for a reason.” She was laughing now, probably getting off on some other family suffering the endless confusion that had been her formative years. “That’s not even the worst of it, though. Devon, the grandson, right? He’s got a twin, and guess what they named him?”

Gavin sat up, all movement stopping. “Wait, there’s a twin?” 

“Uh, yeah. That’s what I’m reading here— Get this, okay? They named the fucking twin  _ Dillan!  _ Can you believe that? Devon and Dillan. That’s just asking for problems.” Her laugh crackled like static in Gavin’s ear. “Anyway, what did you want me to look up about him? There are no priors that I can see…” A weighty pause. “Gavin. Don’t tell me you’re moonlighting again.”

“Well, that’s an interesting question—”

Tina groaned, loudly. She swore a second later, a hell of a lot quieter. “God, you see what you do to me? You bludgeon me with your rank ass stupidity and then everyone stares when I respond the only way I can. What the hell, Gav? I thought you got all that out of your system. You were doing so well this week!” 

Nines was staring down at him, eyes narrowed, on high alert. Gavin belatedly realized he could probably hear both sides of this conversation. “Yeah, well, you know me, Tina, always an idiot,” he said quickly. “But hey, thanks for the information. I gotta go.”

“Gavin, what are you—” 

He hung up on her, a silent  _ sorry  _ issued as he thumbed over the end-call button. Fuck. He reached for the laptop next, opening the online phone book registry. Dora Price was insanely old, so it was very likely she had herself listed in the yellow pages. He searched her name and then down the line of Price, Dora’s until he came to the familiar address.

“What are you doing?” Nines asked in his ear. The vampire had come behind the sofa and leaned over the back, his chin practically resting on Gavin’s shoulder. 

“Testing a theory,” Gavin answered, dialling the number listed beside her name. He shivered when Nines’s cheek brushed his own. It was cool and smooth, and he pulled away from him before he did something stupid like nuzzle it. He hid the move in a slouch, putting the phone to his ear to count the dial tones.

He didn’t get past two before someone was answering. 

“Hello?” a male voice answered. Probably Devon. It was a bit hard to tell through the phone. 

“Hello, sir,” Gavin replied, pitching his voice high and peppy like the worst sort of telemarketers. “I’m calling this evening on behalf of the American Red Cross. As you know, the need for blood is higher than ever. One donation is capable of saving up to three lives.”

The voice on the other line made a sound. A huff perhaps. Maybe a laugh? “Alright,” he said. “Are you calling to ask me to donate?”

“I’m primarily calling in regards to one of our past donors. Is there a Mrs. Dora Price at this number?”

A pause. “She can’t take a call right now,” the voice finally said. “There’s—”

Gavin plowed on ahead, “Oh, we completely understand, sir. We would really love to see Mrs. Price at one of our donation facilities though. If she’s unavailable to talk now, I’ll just call back again tomorrow!”

“She won’t able to take a call tomorrow—”

“Then the day after that!” Gavin trilled, having a bit too much fun with this. “We at the Red Cross work tirelessly to see past donors continue to help us in the constant fight to save lives. When can I expect to see Mrs. Dora at one of our donation centers? I can help you schedule an appointment over the phone right now if—”

“She’s dead, alright!” the voice snapped, cutting him off mid-word. Gavin jumped a little, holding the phone away from his ear. “She’s dead. She can’t take a call or donate anything, because she’s dead.”

Oh. That didn’t bode well. Gavin licked his lips and slowly brought the phone back to his ear. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said, a bit of his pep lost. “Could I make an appointment for you to come in and donate in her stead?”

The voice laughed, short and clipped. “No, you can’t. Don’t call again.” 

The dial tone hit Gavin before he could manage a reply. He lowered his phone and stared at the homescreen of his phone, biting down on his bottom lip as the information settled into the cracks and holes they’d been fighting to fill for ages now. Huh. 

“What was that—” Gavin jumped horribly, nearly clipping Nines under the chin with his shoulder. A hand settled on it before it could, holding him to the couch instead. Nines snorted. “Jumpy. What was all of that about, Gavin? The Red Cross?”

“You gotta stop doing that to me.” His heart was hammering out of his chest. “And dude, have you ever had them call you before?” Gavin scoffed, throwing down his phone. “You donate once and they stop at nothing to get you to come in again. I donated  _ once  _ in high school to get out of Calculus, and I had to tell them I was anemic to get them to take me off their call list when they hammered me with calls twice a week during college.”

Nines blinked slowly. “Alright. Are you anemic?”

Gavin furrowed his brow. “No? Why?” He might be a bit more unsettled to know a vampire was asking him if he were anemic if he didn’t know Nines as well as he did. 

“Just wondering.” His eyes narrowed. “Now, why did you have to call them pretending to be the Red Cross out for blood?”

“Well, just…” Gavin screwed his face up into a frown. “Okay, so you’re gonna be pissed about this, but about the last guy I spoke to when we were out following leads—” 

“The one you didn’t vet yourself but still felt the need to follow into a strange building without backup,” Nines cut in, eyes already going sharp and dark. “Yes, Gavin. What about that guy?”

Good lord. “Well, not that this is going to make you feel any better about all that, but I think he might have been lying to me.” He crossed his arms, throwing on a glare to combat the one already being leveled at him. “The first thing I asked him was if he lived there alone. He told me he did.”

God, if looks could kill. “And?” 

_ “And,”  _ he said, “he answered the fucking door by asking me if I had forgotten my keys.” 

Nines’s expression fell. He glared at Gavin openly. “And you didn’t find that suspicious at all?” he asked, his voice dripping with disbelief. 

Gavin threw his hands up in the air. He stood up from the couch and began to pace, holding back on the urge to grab another donut just to have something to hide behind. “There was a lot going through my mind, okay? And you weren’t there, you don’t know how unsettling the guy was. He saw me there and then we were talking. I didn’t exactly have much time to think about some random ass thing he said when we were both caught off guard. And then there were the fucking ghosts—” 

_“Ghosts?”_ Nines pressed closer, his blue irises going blacker by the second. “What do you mean, ghosts?”

“If you’d let me fucking talk,” Gavin shoved back, holding his ground. “I kept hearing sounds coming from upstairs, like footsteps or something. And before you give me a lecture, it was an old ass house, alright? They make weird noises sometimes! I wasn’t about to argue with the guy when he told me he lived alone and get him on edge when I needed information.”

“And while you were sitting in the lion’s den like a juicy steak begging to be sucked dry,” Nines finished for him, still furious but reining it in if only a little. 

Gavin rolled his eyes. Who the fuck sucked a steak? Sometimes Nines was lucky he was cute. “I got out fine, so let’s try to move past that, alright? What I’m getting at is that there was clearly someone else who lived there. Someone Devon knew had already gone out for the night and was expecting when I knocked on the door. Someone who got back into the house, somehow, right before dawn,  _ and _ the guy has a brother according to the records Tina pulled. Are you seeing where I’m going with this?”

Nines came around the coach, sitting down beside him. He stared at the taped up window, jaw tense. “What are you insinuating?” he asked quietly, flatly. 

Frowning, Gavin angled himself towards Nines. He smelled the tension already, the sensitive territory they were approaching. “When I went to that house, I went with the understanding that an invitation to Devereaux’s party had been sent to it. Devon told me that he’d gotten the letter, didn’t recognize the name on it, so he threw it away. He told me, and I quote,  _ I  _ didn’t attend the party you’re referring to. And he said it just like that.”

Nines didn’t say anything. He turned a little, his hands folded tightly in his lap.

“My guess is that he got the letter. He didn’t go to the party, but his brother did. Maybe he wanted to crash it. Lord knows how many fancy people and fancy things there would be at a party like that.” The Price’s were college-age kids anyway. The temptation was too strong to resist at that age. “The brother went, he caught Alumaria’s eye, and the rest is history. He got turned; his brother didn’t.”

“Then what about the grandmother?” Nines asked then, his eyes a little dull. “What was all of that about?”

Gavin grimaced. “That’s a new problem for us to deal with.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking down at the mess they’d made of his coffee table. “The house didn’t look like the kind of place a young guy like that would live. It was so… old fashioned. The records say the grandmother owned the house, but clearly she doesn’t live there anymore. Whoever I spoke with on the phone said she was… dead.” He looked at Nines knowingly. “None of the records said she was dead.”

Nines’s lips parted. “You… think they killed their own grandmother.”

“I think they did something to her to take her home, yeah.” Killed her, sent her packing, hell, there was always the possibility the vampire of the bunch used that compulsion shit on her to get her out of the picture. It took a lot to get the Red Cross to lay off, but there were easier, less dire ways to do it than say the person was  _ dead.  _ The guy had said that for a reason. The safest lie was always the truth. “What I don’t understand,” he went on, “is why the human, Devon, I’m guessing, went hunting with Dillan that first time. Why he thought he could…”

“Feed,” Nines finished for him. 

Silence fell. Behind the couch came the sound of metallic rustling. Tildie in her food bowl. Gavin nodded his head, bracing his elbows on his knees. That was the big question, wasn’t it? Why a human—a perfectly normal human being—would help murder a woman to drink her blood when there… when there just wasn’t a reason to do so. They’d killed their grandmother. Before or after? Gavin scrubbed at his hair with both hands, wishing the world would make sense just for tonight. 

“I think…” Nines’s voice was soft, careful. Gavin didn’t lift his head. “I think he might have been scared.”

“Scared?” 

“You said they were twins, didn’t you?”

Gavin nodded. He still kept his head down.   

Nines let out a soft breath. The sofa dented; a thigh pressed firmly against Gavin’s. “Can you imagine it, Gavin? Being with someone since birth, the most important person in your life. Doing everything with them. Knowing them better than you know yourself sometimes…”

“And then seeing them be turned while you stay the same,” Gavin finished, knowing Nines couldn’t finish it for himself. “The denial…” He dragged his hand down his face, suddenly so very, very tired.

It didn’t take much to imagine how painful it would be to have someone so close to you turned while you stayed the same. To have someone so integral to your existence, to who you are, be thrown into a new direction as you stayed put. As you… stagnated. 

Nines was shaking. He was trying so hard to hide it, but Gavin could see it. It was in the way he sat, hands folded, spine straight, posture closed off, eyes locked on the board, on the evidence proving Gavin was right. That this was who they were looking for. That they’d found their killer. 

That the killer they’d been searching for was unwelcomingly close to home in more ways than one. 

Gavin reached out a hand and settled it on Nines’s thigh, squeezing it tightly. “Devon might have rejected the idea. All or nothing for them. If Dillon was a vampire, so was he. That would explain why the killings are so frequent, why the blood is purged. Dillon thinks he’s feeding for two.” Jesus Christ, what a clusterfuck. 

A hand settled on top of Gavin’s. Not to pull him away; to hold him there. “It makes sense,” Nines said, his voice just a whisper. The tips of his fingers traced the bones in Gavin’s hand. “I can… It’s…”

“A solid theory,” Gavin finished for him. He wasn’t a big enough dick to make Nines say it. Things were too close to home for him as it was. “Just a working one. God, there’s a lot we’d need to verify. It’s just… yeah.” Their shoulders brushed. He didn’t comment on how Nines leaned into the touch even though he really, really wanted to draw attention to that. To make something of it. 

To  _ do  _ something about it. 

“No.” Nines shook his head, lifting his chin just enough to meet Gavin’s gaze. Gavin’s heart lurched messily in his chest. Nines was just so… God, just so heartbreakingly gorgeous. Like stained glass or a china doll. Something fragile but unerringly sharp the closer he got to shattering. Nines tried for a smile that stopped Gavin’s heart completely. “It’s a great theory, Gavin. You’re… a really good detective.”

Were they… getting closer to one another? It hit him again that Nines was wearing his clothing, that he’d  _ come here  _ wearing it. Gavin tried for a laugh that died on his lips before it could ease the tension building between them. God, did he like how it smelled? Did it smell like them now? “Careful,” he warned, noting how soft Nines’s lips looked, how his dark lashes dusted his pale cheeks every time he blinked all slow and lazy. “You’ll, uh… You’ll make me think you’re actually impressed, talking like that.”

Gavin was falling fast, faster, into a deep, deep hole. 

“Maybe I am.” No preamble. No blink. Nines stared at him with his clear blue eyes, bottom lip caught between his teeth. The points of his fangs dented the delicate flesh. Gavin’s mouth went dry faster than he could process the words. 

His heart pounded.

His palms grew sweaty.

_ I want to make a move,  _ he thought. 

Somehow, looking into Nines’s pale blue eyes… he had a feeling Nines would let him. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -drum roll- 
> 
> its smut-ifer time, bitches
> 
> check out some wonderful art the amazingly talented @abusivebun did over on twitter! (nsfw!) https://twitter.com/AbusiveBun/status/1097253512176693248

The air crackled with an energy so strong that Nines’s heart, long gone still and silent, threatened to beat like a drum left in the rain. 

What was this? He searched Gavin’s face for answers, and his stomach dropped like a lead ball when he recognized what it was he saw aimed at him. His breath came faster. He wasn’t scared— No, this wasn’t fear tingling in his veins. Nines watched Gavin come closer, swaying into his personal space. The hot, burning hand on his thigh tightened until there was no misconstruing Gavin’s intentions. 

He could run. He could break Gavin’s grip and stand up, move out of range, ruin the mood completely. He’d done it before, so he knew it wouldn’t be hard to do now. Gavin would frown and close himself off, wondering what he’d done wrong. He’d be fine though, Nines told himself. He had better options than this, than leaning in to—

A hand rose up and cupped Nines’s cheek. Nines froze like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. Gavin licked at his lips, more than a touch nervous. “Hit me if I’m fucking up,” he said before he closed the distance between them. 

Nines could run. He knew he could. 

It said something about how far they’d come together that he didn’t  _ want  _ to. That he let the kiss happen and leaned in to meet Gavin halfway. 

For a moment, that was all it was. Gavin’s hand on his cheek, the feeling of his slightly chapped lips against his own, the gentle scrape of stubble brushing his chin. Nines shuddered at the heat pouring off Gavin’s skin. He tightened his hands into fists in his lap, body alight, nerves dancing, lips parting ever so slightly in a gasp that made no sound. Gavin stared into his eyes. Reading him. Trying to, at any rate. 

_ You could run,  _ that voice said like a bad habit refusing to be broken.  _ You could run.  _

Nines closed his eyes and opened his mouth. His tongue brushed Gavin’s lips. Gavin let out a harsh breath and tightened his grip on his cheek. “Oh, fuck,” he groaned, and then they were kissing, chasing the other’s taste as if they’d die without it. And maybe they would, Nines mused as he gave up the pretense of denying himself this. Maybe he would die if he didn’t surrender to what had so clearly been festering from the moment they met all those nights ago. 

It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t all that tender despite the soft words and softer looks that had carried them to this moment. The hot press of their mouths, the insistent, greedy scramble of their fingers in the clothing that felt too heavy now, too constricting and hot… Need took over, shoving niceties to the rear. Gavin let go of his thigh to tangle his fingers in his hair. Nines pushed forward, practically crawling into Gavin’s lap. A stack of case files fell to the floor when his heel clipped the table. Tildie bolted from the floor and darted into the kitchen with a disgruntled chirp. A pair of burning hot hands slipped beneath Nines’s hoodie. He retaliated by nudging his thigh between Gavin’s legs. 

A shiver tore down his spine at the realization that Gavin was hard. The scent of it hit him a second later. Nines felt his eyes dilate. Oh,  _ God.  _

“Bed, bed, let me take you to bed,” Gavin rattled off, choking down air when the kiss broke for a split second. Nines didn’t give him long to catch his breath; he was back on him for another kiss before the last syllable had time to pass his lips, but it functioned well enough as an answer to the question Gavin had been trying to ask. 

Nines locked his fingers in Gavin’s shirt, dragging him off the couch and to his feet. 

“Oh, fuck, you’re so strong,” Gavin groaned, shin knocking into the coffee table hard enough to shove it askew. He yanked at Nines’s shirt, forcing him to duck his head for another kiss. “Gonna make you come so fucking hard,” he swore, his voice just a growl, a promise, an inevitability. 

“Please,” Nines choked, shivering hard enough to rattle his teeth. Gavin’s kisses were intoxicating, debilitating. He chased the heat of his body like a flower chasing the sun, going willing and pliant when strong arms wrapped around him and began to lead him down the hall. Down the hall, Nines thought errantly, and away from the familiar living room. Into depths of the apartment he’d never ventured before. 

“You sound so good when you beg,” Gavin told him through the gaps in a kiss. Nines’s back met something firm— a door, one that swung open behind him with a gentle nudge. Nines twisted his head and looked while Gavin sank his dull teeth into his nape, glimpsing grey walls, a hardwood floor, clothing tossed here and there. 

_ Gavin’s bedroom,  _ his mind supplied helpfully. He was in Gavin’s room, and, yeah, there was the bed digging into the backs of his knees. Nines let Gavin’s warm body tip him over, following him as he fell into the messy sheets with a dull thump. More of Gavin’s scent rose up, cloying and mouthwatering. Nines breathed it in, dragging Gavin on top of him, attacking his mouth for a deeper kiss, for a better taste of what was being offered to him with every abortive groan that transferred from Gavin’s lips to his own. 

It was sloppy, the furthest thing from graceful. Nines wriggled and yanked at Gavin, somehow managing to get them fully onto the bed without breaking the kiss once. Gavin’s hand slid beneath the hem of his shirt. Nines whined brokenly. His hand was so fucking hot, burning against his cool skin, searing him down to the bone. Nines grabbed at Gavin’s hair, his nape, his shoulder. He grabbed for anything within reach, praying it would be enough to get more. More contact, more kisses, just  _ more.  _

The mattress dipped off to the side. Nines barely noticed; he was too consumed by the mouth devouring his own, but when something nudged his arm and meowed loudly for attention, he found himself jerked out of the haze blanketing him. Nines tore his mouth away, letting Gavin drag his stubbled face against his neck. Tildie blinked down at him, kneading her claws in the bedding. She meowed again. Nines blinked dumbly back at her. 

“Uh, Gavin?” he whispered. He blushed and cleared his throat of the rasp roughening it, tugging on Gavin’s shirt until he saw fit to look up as well. “We have an audience.”

“Wh— God,” he groaned, flopping down on top of Nines to bury his face in the crook of his neck. Nines went stiff; there weren’t words to describe just how warm Gavin was, or how it felt to have the hard, insistent line of his dick pressed against his thigh the way it was now. Gavin levered himself up on one arm to shoot a burning glare at his cat. “Jesus fucking Christ. You’re really going to cockblock me now?” he asked, grimacing when Tildie’s only response was to step closer and lick him on the nose. 

Nines felt a tension ease in the pit of his stomach. He brought up his hand to pet her as much as he could given the poor angle. “She’s so cute,” he whispered, tearing his gaze away from her as Gavin began to move off of him. He looked up at the man, then as if drawn by a magnetic force, looked down at the front of Gavin’s jeans. Nines’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. 

There was a particular sort of feeling endemic to learning that what you felt against your thigh really did measure up to the reality present in front of your eyes. 

“She can be cute somewhere else,” Gavin muttered, reaching down to adjust himself without a second thought before he reached for Tildie. “Come on, you little nightmare,” he murmured, lifting her into his arms. “Time for you to hang out in the living room while daddy gets off.”

Nines sat up, embarrassment flooding his cheeks as best it could given he hadn’t had much to drink tonight. “Daddy?” he echoed— and there he was, blushing even harder when Gavin looked at him oddly. He’d been going for a mocking tone, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth it had come out anything but. Gavin clutched Tildie’s wiggling body to his chest like a lifeline. Nines  _ heard  _ the sound of his blood pressure changing, redirecting southwards. 

“I’m gonna… I’m just gonna, yeah,” Gavin stammered, turning on his heel to carry Tildie out of the bedroom. His heart pounded hard, thumping a mile a minute. Nines watched his retreat. A shuddering breath left him once he was alone. 

God. God! What was that? Nines released his deathgrip on the bedspread to cover his face with his hands. He probably just ruined everything with that fucking “joke” and now Gavin would come back with an awkward look on his face and his phone in his hand, some made up excuse at the ready to kick him out and send him on his way because he  _ called him daddy. _

Why hadn’t he run when he had a chance? Mistake, this was a mistake. Nines sucked in a lungful of air, never so certain of anything in his life. Why had he said that? Why had he even let himself think he could have this? 

Footsteps. Nines’s ears pricked at the sound. He grimaced behind his hands and glanced up, peeking through his fingers as Gavin reappeared in the doorway. There was no phone in his hand. Maybe he had some other excuse to use, he figured ruefully. He let his hands fall to his sides. Any moment now. Any second. 

“Sorry about that,” Gavin said, taking care to make sure the door was closed fully behind him. He put his back to it once it was, sagging against it with an apologetic smile on his stupidly handsome face. “Me going back here usually means bedtime, so she probably thought it was time to sleep.”

Nines bobbed his head, looking more at the floor than at Gavin. “It’s fine,” he said, twisting his hands in the fabric of his borrowed—ha, more like stolen—sweater. He had a shirt here somewhere. He should take it, change into it, give this back… 

A warm hand cupped his chin. Nines blinked. He hadn’t noticed Gavin moving, but he had. He tilted up his head and looked into the man’s eyes, reading confusion in them, uncertainty. The hand moved. Not away, but to cradle his cheek instead. “Is… everything alright?” Gavin asked, the pad of his thumb stroking over Nines’s cheekbone in debilitatingly thoughtless sweeps. 

Lips suddenly cold, Nines struggled to look at the man above him. Gavin’s hand was… it was just so  _ warm.  _ He wanted to turn away from it, to pull back before Gavin could do it first. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, hating how weak he’d become that he couldn’t even bring himself to do that. “Do you want me to leave?”

Gavin’s hand faltered. “Leave?” He pulled away and Nines’s heart sank. Gavin gave a nervous sort of laugh, running his hand down the back of his neck. “Did I fuck up already? I thought… I mean…” He looked down at Nines sheepishly. “I thought we were having a good time. If this is about Tildie interrupting, I swear she doesn’t know how to open closed doors.”

“It’s… It’s not like that,” Nines said, shifting awkwardly on the bed. Gavin sat down beside him. It took everything in him not to move closer to him. 

“Okay.” Gavin moved a little closer as if reading his mind. “You wanna talk to me about it?”

_ Not really, _ was Nines’s immediate knee-jerk response. He kept it to himself though. Gavin deserved more than that at this point, and even if he didn’t, he knew from experience how persistent Gavin would be if he thought he was being denied the truth. He sighed, eyes locked on the floor. “I’m just embarrassed,” he muttered, a knot of tension building at the base of his spine. He could feel the warmth of Gavin’s kisses on his lips still. What a fucking joke this night was turning into. 

Gavin leaned forward, tilting his head until he caught his eye. “Why are you embarrassed?” he asked, glancing towards the door. “Tildie is an eloquent lady, but I promise she’s not the type to gossip about how cute you look on your back.” 

“Oh my God.” He covered his face with his hands. “Why are you like this?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to understand.” Gavin’s shoulder nudged Nines’s, his laugh a physical thing. “I don’t know what else you think you could have done that might be embarrassing. Stupidly sexy, sure, but embarrassing? Nah.”

He would say that, wouldn’t he? God, he was making a mountain out of a molehill, like usual. “I’m sorry,” Nines said, rubbing at his eyes aggressively. “I’m not making any sense. I’m thirsty and it’s hard to think sometimes and you just… smell good. I’m a mess, Gavin. Ignore me.”

“When have I ever ignored you?” That hand was back, combing through his hair. Nines lowered his hands a little, peeking at Gavin through the gaps in his fingers. Gavin was smiling. The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. Nines’s heart did a funny little throb. “If you’re thirsty, just have a drink. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Nines snapped a bit waspishly. 

Gavin raised a brow. “And why’s that?”

He stared at Gavin like he was an idiot, because he was. “Do you see a blood bag around here?” he asked slowly, caught between glaring at Gavin and avoiding his gaze completely. The anger was seeping out of him, leaving him limp and tired. He couldn’t keep it up when Gavin refused to rise to the bait. Who would have thought it’d be  _ now  _ that Gavin would feel the need to hold his temper. Nines scrubbed at his face and dropped his hands into his lap. “Don’t be flippant about this. I can’t drink from you, Gavin. I’ll just hurt you.”

“I highly doubt that.” He pressed even closer. His mouth met Nines’s turned cheek, teeth scraping his jaw. “You know I trust you, right? You’ve wanted to drink from me before and you held back. You’ve got more control than you think. Come on, Nines,” he whispered, reassuring and tempting all at once. “I want you to feel good if we’re gonna do this. Let me help you feel good.”

There was a sound building in the base of Nines’s throat, something he knew would be closer to a yearning keen than anything derisive. He found his head turning towards Gavin. Their lips met and Gavin smiled. 

“Gavin,” Nines whispered, shivering when he felt the furthest thing from cold. “This is a bad idea.”

“Probably,” Gavin returned, pulling back to lay himself out on the bed. He gave a smirk that looked too cocky for the situation. “That’s the only kind I have.”

Tongue stuck to the roof of Nines’s mouth, he stared down at Gavin stretched out on the mattress. The collar of his shirt was loose, he noticed, tugged down to bare his collar bones. Gavin caught him staring; he smiled wider, crooking his neck to the side, baring the thick length for him. Nines felt his eyes dilate. The room snapped into sharper focus. His breath quickened. He could taste Gavin’s excitement, his nervous sweat as he realized just what he’d asked for. 

He clearly had no idea what he was getting himself into. Nines should ask him. He should try to talk him out of this. He stared at Gavin, stared at his throat. His mouth was so… dry. He closed his eyes tight and tried to make himself talk. 

Gavin’s heartbeat sped up. A pitter-patter that tried to run from what it knew was inches away. Nines shivered. He opened his eyes. He  _ thirsted.  _

When Nines pitched forward on the bed and began to crawl towards him, Gavin let out a nervous laugh. He couldn’t stop himself from recoiling, but Nines barely noticed. He couldn’t get far either way. It didn’t matter. “You, uh, you aren’t going to use your beastmode mouth on me, right?” he asked, his leg bouncing a little until Nines flattened his hand over his knee and held it to the bed. 

“No,” Nines said, sharp, clipped. 

“Huh. Alright. Good to know—”

Instinct took over for a second; not long, but long enough for Nines to cover Gavin’s body with his own. It hit him then that Gavin was short, shorter than him, small despite being the opposite of weak for a human. The firm muscle beneath his hands strained against him, easily held down but still powerful. Nines shivered at the feeling and shoved his face into the crook of Gavin’s neck. The full force of Gavin’s scent hit him like a punch to the head. 

This was definitely a bad idea. 

Nines licked a long line up Gavin’s neck. Gavin hissed, arching beneath him, and Nines rode the undulation like a wave, getting harder by the second with the taste of Gavin’s sweat on his tongue. His throat was… God, it was so hot, so thick, so strong. Gavin was  _ strong.  _ His body was made of firm muscle, bulky and thick along his chest and biceps, and for every pass of Nines’s hands, he found something else to appreciate about it. 

It was a wonder he’d managed to focus at all on the case; Gavin was certainly a distraction now. Every inch of his bare skin begged Nines to pause, to pay attention. The dip of his collar bone, the soft space behind his ear— his heartbeat pounded loud in Nines’s ears, urging him on, goading him to do as he pleased, to listen to instinct and take the way his fangs ached for him to take. 

Gavin made a small sound. “Will this… hurt?”

Words were hard. Nines shook his head. He knew from experience it wouldn’t.

“Okay,” Gavin whispered, smoothing his hands down Nines’s back. “I trust you. Don’t be afraid.”

_ I’m not afraid,  _ Nines thought, but… He sucked in a breath against Gavin’s throat. He gave a rough laugh. He was shaking. He could feel it now. Trembling like a leaf beneath Gavin’s hands. He held tighter to the man’s shoulders, hiding his face. He parted his lips, bared his teeth. To think, Gavin felt the need to comfort the monster about to suck his blood. 

Nines was afraid. He was very, very afraid. 

He bit down anyway. 

Gavin’s flesh parted around his fangs easily. He hissed, Nines groaned, and blood rose up to fill his mouth in a wave of burning fury. The taste, the heat, the  _ feeling—  _ It defied words. Nines had lived his life drinking only from blood bags, from secondhand sources that rarely if ever were willing to share with him the taste of their blood without expecting something in return for the favor. Gavin gasped beneath him, limp and pliable in his hands, giving it freely, begging him to take more, to drink his fill. 

There was a terrible urge to do just that. Nines had never felt the call this strongly before, probably because before there had never been any vein at his lips  _ tempting  _ him to drink it dry. Just a cold, plastic bag, an impersonal vampire with blood that enticed but didn’t rouse, that sated but didn’t satisfy the way this clearly did. Nines closed his eyes, ready to cry at the difference. He could feel Gavin’s heart beat in time to his swallows. He could feel it beginning to quicken, to struggle as it was forced to pump faster to compensate. 

It would be so easy. It wouldn’t take any effort at all, and he knew deep down, nestled in the pit of his being, in the basest of his instincts, that Gavin wouldn’t fight back. 

“Oh, fuck, Nines,” Gavin groaned as Nines loosened his jaw with a shudder. His hand combed through the hair on the back of his head, slightly clammy when it grazed his nape. A messy kiss met Nines’s cheek. “Fuck, babe, that was so good. That felt so good. Do it again, I want it again.”

Nines closed his eyes tight and ran his tongue along the wound, cleaning it until the bleeding slowed. “Don’t tempt me,” he begged, voice haggard, hoarse as if he’d been doing something a little more involved than just drinking from him. Maybe now he understood all those half-murmured rumors spoken behind closed doors. A living donor—a  _ willing  _ donor—was… good. Better than good, better than sex. 

Nines groaned and pressed his forehead to Gavin’s shoulder at the thought. He was hard in his trousers, proving that rumor true. True enough at least. He didn’t know if he could get off just by drinking. Gavin rocked into him, whining softly for more, please, give him more. Nines groaned again. One of them was willing to test the theory. More than willing, even if it did mean he’d probably bleed out in the process. 

Even knowing that, Nines still found himself gravitating towards the sluggishly bleeding bite. He pressed his lips to it, savoring the gasp that tore through Gavin’s chest a split second later. God, he could still taste the blood, feel it collect on his tongue. He groaned pitifully and fought against the itch in his fangs to bite down again, to coax more blood to the surface. He was shaking again. His control wasn’t good enough for this. Not now. Not with Gavin.    

“Baby, baby, look at me.”

Nines couldn’t lift his head. He was frozen stiff, his teeth parted and hovering but sheer force of will keeping him from lunging. Gentle, considerate fingers threaded through his hair. Nines let Gavin pull him back and away, angling his face up for a kiss that Nines returned with a choked sob. His teeth got in the way. Blood colored the kiss here too, Gavin feeding it to him with every press of his lips and tongue. God. Oh, God, this was too much. It was hell. It was heaven. It was… 

A low purr rose up, vibrating lowly from the depths of Gavin’s chest. “So beautiful,” he said, the words echoing inside Nines’s mouth, forcing him to swallow them, to take them inside before they could spill out of his mouth. “Do you know? You are so beautiful.”

Things were restrained compared to before, but the kisses were gaining traction, the touches growing firmer with every second that passed. Nines whined when Gavin pushed at his shoulders. “Please,” he whispered, aching for more, for another taste. He scrambled to keep his fingers locked in the muscle of Gavin’s shoulders. “Please, Gavin—”

“Shh, I know, I know, babe,” he answered, kissing Nines to keep him settled. His hands smoothed down Nines’s waist, hooking and tugging on the hem of the sweatshirt. Understanding washed over Nines in a wave. He raised his arms and let Gavin strip him, crooning all the while, “There we go, good. Let me see you.”

The sweater hit the floor with nary a sound, an easy thing when Nines’s ears rushed with a wind that wasn’t there. He breathed in and out, faster than he needed to, heavier than he should ever need to breathe. Gavin’s hands burned like fire, like the sunlight he hadn’t seen in decades. They ran up his sides first, ghosting along his hips, thumbs tracing the shape of his rib bones with reverent care. Nines let out a lungful of air in an instant when Gavin leaned forward to close his lips around one of his nipples. Nines threw back his head. His cock twitched helplessly in his pants. He was warm inside and out now, warmed with Gavin’s blood and touch…

“Oh, God,” he whimpered, grabbing at Gavin’s hair to keep him there, to keep that mouth on him. Had he ever  _ felt  _ this strongly before? Maybe back as a human, but certainly never after. Ryker had never felt like this. Gavin’s stubble scraped at his skin, sending frissons of  _ something  _ down his spine. Nines bit down hard on his bottom lip, rolling his hips forward when those hands slipped down the back of his trousers to cup at his ass insistently. 

“Your ass is so fucking fat.” The hands groped harder, digging in deep, pulling Nines onto his knees. Gavin bit down on one of his nipples. Nines threw back his head, moaning loud enough to embarrass them both. “God, I need… We need lube, Nines.” Gavin slowly retracted his hands but his mouth stayed put, pressing kisses to the place he just bit. “God, I want you. Want you so bad.”

“Then come have me,” Nines answered breathlessly, ripping himself out of Gavin’s lap because someone had to be the responsible one here. He threw himself down onto the mattress, putting distance between them until he could breathe without tasting Gavin on his tongue. Gavin scrambled for the edge of the bed, stumbling to his feet. The fumble pulled a laugh out of him, short and quiet. God, they were really doing this. They were really going to have sex. 

Gavin kept his supplies in the dresser across the room, a distance far too great to be of any great use in Nines’s humble opinion. Gavin clearly was feeling the same as he tripped his way towards it, kicking at loose clothing and the pillows that had fallen victim to their movements already. “Where are they?” Gavin muttered to himself, jerking open the topmost drawer with a vengeance. He ran his hand through his hair, swore, then gripped the bottom of his shirt— 

“God, it’s fucking hot in here, right?” He turned just enough to look at Nines for confirmation. “Right? Is it just me?”

Off went the shirt, on went Nines’s salivary glands. Gavin was muscular, not quite cut but with definition that couldn’t be denied. Nines stoppered a whine before it could leave his throat. He’d only just gotten done licking all over his neck—hell, he could see the visceral, red reminders of where his mouth had been painted along Gavin’s bare skin. He couldn’t go running his tongue all over his chest too. Nines squirmed and looked away, looking back when Gavin turned around to dig through the dresser drawer. 

“It’s just you,” he said quietly, proud that he didn’t choke on the words. 

“God, if you say so.” A packet of condoms landed on the bed beside Nines’s thigh. A half-empty bottle of lube came next, rolling to a stop next to his hand. 

Nines tapped at the bottle, rolling it slightly to reveal the label. It was unflavored, unsurprisingly, but good quality nonetheless. Silicone-based. Couple that with the amount missing… Nines frowned. That was one way to temper the heat afflicting them both. 

“You’re not in a relationship, right?”

Gavin looked up from his drawer. He wrinkled his nose. “What gave you that impression?” he wondered, hands moving to his waistband. Nines’s eyes widened as he made quick work of his belt, then the zipper and button. He had to clear his throat to remind Nines he’d been asked a question. 

Nines picked up the bottle of lube. “Silicone-based lube is the best type of lube for unprotected anal sex. Most couples don’t have unprotected sex unless they’re in a committed relationship,” he said without aplomb, hunching his shoulders as Gavin shucked his jeans and kicked them away to join the rest of the clothing littering the floor. “Natural oils are best for personal masturbation.” 

“Christ, you’re analysing my lube preferences that much?” Nines lifted his head, expecting to see anger, but Gavin was smiling an awkward sort of smile instead. He looked down a little— and there was Gavin’s cock, covered by his boxers but clearly tenting the fabric. The dick came closer— _ Gavin  _ came closer. Nines lifted his head.  _ Look him in the eye, not the crotch,  _ he told himself. He needed to know before he got involved with this man. 

Nines managed to shrug a shoulder. “It’s part of my job,” he said quietly, clutching the bottle of lube tightly. “Will you just answer my question?”

Warm hands reached out and cupped his cheeks, bringing him in for a kiss he couldn’t help but return. It was a short one, just a peck. “I’m woefully single, Nines,” Gavin told him, peppering in kisses between the words. “I jerk off in the shower. That bottle is kinda old, and it’s been, God, ages since I last brought anyone home.” He pressed their foreheads together, sighing as he stared into Nines’s eyes. “It’s hard to meet people when you’re nocturnal.”

“Unless you meet a vampire,” Nines offered tersely, embarrassed and warm in equal measure. 

“Unless I meet a vampire,” Gavin echoed, pressing one last kiss to the corner of his mouth before pulling away completely. He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more than Nines already had. He looked down at Nines on his bed, eyeing the lube, the condoms, and the jeans he was still wearing. He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. “You have any preferences on how we do this?”

Ah. Nines picked up the lube and set it with the condoms. He tucked some hair behind his ear. He tried not to come off as nervous as he felt. The shrug he offered up probably fell short of that. 

Yeah, just one glance told him that Gavin didn’t buy it. The man crawled onto the bed, settling in beside him. The warm line of his shoulder burned along Nines’s side. With their shirts off, the contact was debilitating. “You’ve got preferences. No one as old as you has lived that long without making some, so don’t give me that,” Gavin crooned, leaning in to suck on his neck in a weak-toothed facsimile of what Nines had done to him earlier. Dull toothed as he was, it didn’t take away from the pleasure it elicited. “Talk to me, babe. You want in me? You want me in you? Both? Neither? Give me something. I want to treat you right.”

Nines sucked in a breath when Gavin’s teeth came a little too close to his siremark. He shook hard, wrapping his arm around Gavin’s head to hold him there, to keep his mouth on him. “I want you in me,” he said haltingly, closing his eyes tight. He knew how he looked and he knew that wasn’t the sort of position most people wanted him to take, given how large and intimidating he was. “I… I want to feel how hot you are.” Just a taste wouldn’t be enough. He needed more. He needed as much of Gavin as he could get without draining him dry. 

A groan vibrated against his flesh, damp and lustful. Gavin wrapped his arms around Nines’s waist, pressed forward, guided him down, down, down until they were both falling against the mattress, Nines on his back with Gavin hovering over him, lips still at work in the crook of his neck. Nines closed his eyes and arched. He was on fire, an inferno, every inch of Gavin’s bare skin searing him to the bone and deeper still. He stared up at the ceiling and cried out weakly, “God, Gavin, please. Please, I want it.”

“I’ll give it to you,” Gavin promised, propping himself up on his elbows. He rained down kisses that Nines was too slow to return. A hand settled on Nines’s fly. Down came his zipper. A flick of the wrist opened the button. Nines lifted his hips and helped Gavin drag his jeans down his legs, kicking and swearing at the tight fit until they finally were lost to the floor. Gavin stared down at his body with hunger alive and aching in his eyes. 

“Just look at you,” he breathed, eyes dragging up Nines’s body with an almost physical weight. They settled on his tight boxer briefs, already damp with precome. 

Nines wanted to tell Gavin to look at himself. To just… see what Nines saw. His sun-kissed skin, his gorgeous muscles, the dusting of hair that covered his chest, his arms, his thighs… He threw out a hand and yanked at the elastic of Gavin’s boxers. “Off, I want them off,” he gasped, a whine building in the back of his throat the longer it took to see that happen. Gavin laughed a little, shimmying, rolling his hips, and there! There, they were off, thrown behind him, Gavin’s cock hard and thick and everything Nines wanted in his mouth right now. 

“You too,” Gavin said, tugging at Nines’s waistband next. “Fair is fair.”

Sure. Fair was fair. Nines lifted his hips and tried not to cover his face with his hands as Gavin pulled down his underwear with all the reverence of the holy. He looked over at the wall, the ceiling, at the fibers in the sheet beside his head. Gavin’s hands burned when they ran down his thighs, kneading and massaging and spreading them around his hips. 

He was staring hard now. Nines fidgeted, snatching up the bottle of lube to throw it against Gavin’s chest. “Here,” he said, shifting a little, more than aware of how he probably looked right now. “I don’t need much prep. It’s hard to hurt me.”

Gavin took the bottle, nonplussed. He popped the cap, eyes jumping from Nines’s face to what was between his legs. Sweat had broken out along Gavin’s body, glistening a little in the creases on his forehead, in the hollow of his chest. “You are so fucking hot and so fucking stupid if you think I’m gonna rush a second of this,” he said, coating his fingers with the lube. He set down the bottle and let his free hand run up and down the length of Nines’s thigh, squeezing and worrying a spot towards the crease of his hip and leg with the pad of his calloused thumb. “God. Seriously. Do you have any idea how sexy you are?”

Nines swallowed, fighting the urge to look away. He shrugged a shoulder. “You keep telling me,” he mumbled, bucking his hips impatiently when Gavin finally put his other hand between his legs where it belonged. “I think I’m getting the gist.”

“The  _ gist?”  _ Gavin snorted, rubbing at his entrance teasingly. Nines shivered, biting down on his bottom lip hard. It’d been awhile since he’d last done this. He sucked in a breath when Gavin pressed harder, breaching him in one slick, easy motion. “God, Nines. You better come out of this with a lot more than just a gist or I’m doing my job wrong.”

As far as Nines was concerned, the only job Gavin had to do right now was fingering him. He lifted his thigh and wrapped it around Gavin’s hip, pulling him closer pointedly. Gavin grunted. His finger slid all the way in and Nines threw back his head, letting out a noise that was a little louder than it probably should have been. His cock twitched against his belly, giving him away even more. Gavin barked out a weak, disbelieving laugh. Nines squirmed and clenched around his finger. 

That got the laughter to stop. Gavin sucked in a breath, swallowing the saliva teasing his lips. He braced his hand on the bed and stared intently between Nines’s legs, rocking his finger in and out, in and out, teasing him with a second finger when Nines grunted and tossed his head. “You are so bossy,” Gavin murmured, not sounding upset at all. He gave him another finger and leaned down to kiss along the length of Nines’s neck, kissing and nipping at his siremark just to hear him moan louder. 

“G-Gavin, come on,” Nines ordered, clutching at the man’s shoulders when the sheets threatened to rip beneath his hands. Gavin was so slow, teasing and goading him with the promise of a third finger as he took his time kissing up and down his neck. He worked his way up to Nines’s ear, and Nines turned away, shivering pitifully when Gavin groaned against the shell of it. “Come on, give me more. I want more.” This wasn’t even remotely enough. 

“I know,” Gavin said, nipping at his ear before pulling away. He stared at his hand, pressing in the tip of his third finger, watching how Nines stretched around him. He sucked on his bottom lip, biting it, worrying it, glancing up at Nines with black-blown eyes. “You feel so good, Nines. So fucking tight.” The rest of his finger pushed forward, stretching Nines with a stab of pain that quickly bled into pleasure. “You want me to fuck you? You think you can take it?”

“Yes, fuck, Gavin, do it.” He’d been ready a finger ago, and he wanted to scream. He didn’t need niceties. He didn’t need Gavin leaning down to kiss up his chest, curling his fingers to brush that spot inside him that made the world turn white around the edges. Nines threw back his head and whined, bearing down and rocking as much as he could. “Fuck me, Gavin! Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me—”

The hand between his legs disappeared, pulling a keen from Nines’s throat from the loss. Gavin grabbed for his shoulder, his arm, dragging him off the bed until they both were sitting upright. “God, gonna fuck you so fucking hard, babe,” Gavin growled, pulling and tugging Nines onto his knees, forward, trading spaces with him so Gavin could put his back to the headboard. Nines hovered over his hips, straddling him easily. 

“Like this?” he asked, a little off center at the choice in positions. Riding someone was… intimate. Normally he stayed on his hands and knees, face down and ass up. Gavin was smiling at him, so sincere through his outward lust. Perhaps it made sense, Nines figured, to do it this way. Gavin seemed to like his face. He probably wanted to see it even now. 

“That’s perfect,” Gavin told him, gripping him by the hips to pull him closer. Nines blushed weakly, rocking a little against Gavin’s cock. Maybe… Maybe Nines could understand doing it like this. They looked good together, their cocks rubbing against each other, Gavin’s a bright red compared to his more sedate pink. Gavin rested his head against the headboard heavily, letting out a low, shaky groan. “Wanna watch you ride me. You’re gonna look so good bouncing on my dick, Nines. So fucking good.”

“You’re a pervert,” Nines returned, not really meaning it but still, kind of meaning it too. He rolled his hips forward a little harder, pulling another groan from Gavin easily. He was finding he really liked the sound, liked the way it deepened the blush on Gavin’s shoulders, the almost drunk look in his eyes. 

With a laugh, Gavin shrugged. “Yeah, probably,” he said easily, unbothered either way. Gavin reached for the condom. Nines threw out his hand, wrapping his fingers around his wrist before he could pick it up. 

“You don’t need that with me,” he murmured, averting his eyes as his cheeks flushed hotly with the blood he’d drank. Gavin was staring at him with wide, surprised eyes. God. “I can’t get sick. So… it’s fine.” 

“Are you…” This time it was Gavin’s turn to blush. Nines smelled it before he lifted his head, the displacement of blood, the sound of his heart quickening. He caught the sight of it just before Gavin covered his face with his hand. He dragged it down his chin. “Fuck,” he rasped. “God, and you call  _ me  _ the pervert.” Nines could  _ hear  _ him getting harder. 

“You don’t have to unless you want to,” he said, letting go of Gavin’s hand. He pulled back into himself, twisting his hands in his lap, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around himself to hide. It’d be stupid to try; sitting like this in Gavin’s lap, the last thing he could do was hide. 

A calculated decision on Gavin’s part, that. He leaned in, searching for Nines’s eyes when he still tried anyway. “Do you want to?”

Nines burned hotter. His ears felt like they were on fire. “I… like it better without,” he mumbled, reaching for a pillow to hide his face. The linen was a cool kiss to his cheeks. He doubted it was thick enough to muffle him when he went on, “But it’s up to you. Do what you want.”

It didn’t surprise him when the pillow was tugged away. Gavin kissed him before he could complain. “We can go without, so long as you’re okay with it,” he said, squeezing his waist soothingly. “You’re really so cute, you know that? It’s great.”

Yeah, cute. Calling him daddy and then asking to be fucked raw was Nines’s definition of cute too. 

Instead of responding, Nines just lowered his head and wrapped his hand around Gavin’s cock. “Just put this in me already,” he mumbled, reaching for the lube to coat it thoroughly. Gavin went tense and then loose, melting into the strokes. Nines lifted his eyes to watch for a moment. Gavin… was too handsome. Too handsome by far. 

Without looking away, Nines rose to his knees, positioning himself over the hard, twitching cock in his hand. He met Gavin’s gaze. He lowered himself—  _ Fuck,  _ there. There it was. “Oh, shit,” Nines hissed, throwing back his head as he sank down inch by grueling inch. This was his favorite part, the stretch. It hurt so good. It never lasted long enough. 

True to form, his ass met Gavin’s hips a moment later. Gavin was a hot, stiff spear of burning heat inside him, throbbing rhythmically, his blood calling out to its kin flowing through Nines’s veins. Nines echoed with it, drowning in the feeling. He shuddered messily and pitched forward, draping his arms around Gavin’s shoulders. He listed to the side and stared at Gavin without really seeing him. 

But Gavin could see him. Nines blinked slowly, watching as the man took him in, head to toe. Being on display like this… Nines couldn’t hide. Gavin  _ stared  _ at him, watching him with his lips parted and awe clearly evidenced on his face. That was so odd. Honestly, it was odd. Nines tried not to let it unsettle him. He knew Gavin liked what he saw. He wouldn’t have asked him to do it like this if he didn’t. 

“God, Nines,” Gavin murmured, lifting up a hand to stroke his cheek. “You’re perfect.”

Nines caught him by the wrist and held his palm to his face. “I’m not even moving yet,” he whispered. He shifted forward a little, bracing his knees carefully. Gavin’s mattress was softer than he was used to, memory foam instead of rusted old springs like he had at his haven. It wouldn’t help him much for what came next. He rested his hands on Gavin’s shoulder, readying himself to rise up—

His eyes widened as the hand on his cheek tugged him in for another kiss. Another deep, molten kiss, Gavin’s tongue slipping past his lax lips to coax his to life. Nines stared into Gavin’s eyes; Gavin stared back, lids heavy, heavier, closing like he trusted Nines implicitly. The intimacy was… Nines closed his eyes tight. The man was inside him but somehow this kiss felt a thousand times more intimate, more debilitating. Nines sucked in a breath through his nose and began to move. 

The kiss broke a moment later. Gavin was the one to move, his need for air too great to ignore. He groaned loudly against Nines’s cheek, grabbing for his hips. “Oh, oh, wow,” he rasped, his voice dropping an octave and collecting like a weight in the bottom of Nines’s stomach. “Oh, baby. Please. That’s so good.”

It was good. It was… really good. Nines closed his eyes tight, rocking up, falling down, letting gravity do the work for him as Gavin’s cock slid in and out, in and out. He pitched forward and rested his weight on Gavin’s shoulders, clawing at his back. “Do you like it?” he asked, rubbing his cock against Gavin’s firm stomach. God, it felt good. His precome was sticking and matting the hair there, catching and glistening wetly. He hissed out a whine when a hand snaked down between them to wrap around him. Pleasure tore through him with the first stroke. His toes curled in the sheets. His fangs pierced his bottom lip. 

This wasn’t going to last long, especially if Gavin kept that up. 

“You feel so fucking good,” he gasped, bucking his hips to meet Nines’s ass. The bed began to lurch, shifting softly at first but then harder, harder, bumping the wall when Nines leaned over Gavin’s shoulders to grip the headboard behind him. The leverage was great, perfect, the angle even better. Nines moaned into Gavin’s neck. He gave in to the urge to bite him again. This time, he made sure to keep his teeth in check. 

Softened by the endorphins, or maybe just by Nines in general, Gavin melted. He  _ melted.  _ He sagged against the headboard and tipped his head to the side, so willing to be used, to be drained, to play the willing, happy victim to the monster seated on his lap. Nines dented the wooden frame with his fingers, resisting the itch in his fangs, the instinct screaming at him to take what was so freely given to him. He remembered the feeling so well, even with the memories decades old. His sire had bit him once. Nines had begged him to do it again, again, again and again and again until he couldn’t possibly give any more. 

His sire had listened. He’d fucked him face down, using him like a toy he couldn’t wait to break.

The headboard splintered beneath his fingers. Nines bit down on his own lip until he tasted Gavin in his mouth, cooler than it would have been if he’d bit the neck in front of him, mixed with his own stale blood until he could barely tell them apart. It wasn’t as good as it could be, if he’d just give in. 

He swallowed it down anyway. He wouldn’t do the same thing to Gavin that had been done to him. 

“Please,” Gavin begged, hazy and pleasure drunk. “God, I want it.”

“I know you do,” Nines told him, because he did. He truly, truly did. “I’ll do better,” he promised, speeding up the pace, fucking himself hard enough to send stars skittering across his vision like the sky during a meteor shower. He choked on a moan, pulling his head back to straighten his spine. Gavin struck him deeper. They both groaned, Gavin dragged from his bite-yearn in an instant. 

Nines cracked open his eyes to watch him. Gavin stared up at him as if he were something to be worshiped instead of feared. “You drive me crazy,” Gavin mouthed, or maybe he said it aloud; Nines’s ears were rushing with wind, his vision consumed by white lights. He couldn’t hear. He could only feel, hungry for the intimacy he’d gone without for longer than he cared to remember. 

Gavin’s hands gripped his waist. His body shifted beneath his thighs, guiding him, coaxing him into a new position. The transition was seamless, built from Gavin’s strength and synchronicity. Gavin pushed and Nines pulled, rolling over until Nines lay flat on the bed with Gavin between his thighs. The angle wasn’t as deep now, wasn’t quite as absolute, but the intimacy was tenfold. Nines couldn’t see anything but Gavin now. The room bled away, reduced to smears of color on the edge of perceptibility. All that mattered now, all that stood at the forefront of his focus, was Gavin. 

Just Gavin.

Strong hands hitched his thighs over shifting hips. The hair on Gavin’s chest tickled when it rubbed against his own. When Gavin leaned in to kiss him, Nines parted his lips before there was any need to ask for entrance. The man already had it. He could do anything he wanted; Nines would happily let him. 

He knew Gavin wouldn’t abuse that. 

It took between his orgasm and Gavin’s to realize that it was the best sex he’d ever had. 

It took until the afterglow hit for Nines to realize why that was. 

Gavin hit the mattress with a groan. Nines protested the need to move at all, but it was probably asking too much for Gavin to stay over him, buried inside him until they both grew sticky and uncomfortable with the mess they had made of one another. To make up for it, Nines rolled onto his side, throwing his thigh over Gavin’s hips. Nines buried his face in Gavin’s shoulder. His skin felt so warm. 

“That was amazing,” he whispered after a few beats of silence, peppering Gavin with kisses. “You’re amazing.”

“Isn’t that my line?” Gavin panted, still out of breath but wearing it well. There was a grin on his face when Nines lifted his head, a wide one that showed off his teeth. His dark eyes were dancing, his cheeks flushed high with color. Nines burned with the sudden urge to kiss him. He didn’t resist it. 

Their lips met slowly, unhurried and unbothered now that the tension was sated for the moment. Nines cupped Gavin’s cheek while Gavin carded his fingers through his hair. Their legs tangled together beneath the sheets until there was no hope of either of them escaping the bed any time soon. Good. Nines didn’t want to think of anything but this right now. Not the case, not his problems, and definitely not of the sunrise on its way to tear them apart come morning—

Gavin broke the kiss, his brows furrowed and his lips curling into a frown. “You’re thinking about something,” he said, voice low and broken by the need to breathe. He stroked Nines’s hair and pulled him closer. “Whatever it is, it’s fine. You’re fine.”

Nines closed his eyes, going willingly when Gavin reeled him in for a few teasing kisses to his cheeks and lips. These kisses were so tender, so warm. He could get addicted to them if Gavin wasn’t careful, and then where would they both be? What a mess, what a mess. Nines rested his forehead against Gavin’s, smiling softly as he stared into his eyes. “I’m just glad I didn’t kill you when I had the chance,” he murmured. “It would’ve been such a waste of a good lay.”

Gavin snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, thanks for that. Good instincts or whatever.” He drew his hands lower, squeezing and fondling Nines’s thighs the way he had when he’d been compelled and lacking all semblance of propriety and self-preservation. “That would’ve left you with one less dick to ride like a maniac. I’m sure there’s some vampire out there cursing my name as we speak.” 

His grimace said  _ Ryker  _ loud enough for Nines to read it a mile away. Cute. “You don’t need to worry so much about that. I only sleep with humans anymore,” he whispered, tapping his fingertips against Gavin’s ribs in time to the heart beating in his ear. If he bothered to sleep with anyone at all. He hadn’t in awhile. He hadn’t felt the urge, nor had the energy to try living like he still had a life. “They’re easier.”

The heartbeat stuttered. Nines’s head bounced a little as Gavin laughed. “Easier? Did you really just call me easy?” He snorted and dragged his fingers through Nines’s hair, gently scraping his scalp with his nails. Nines shivered and leaned into the touch. “Should I be offended by that or just lucky you went for the low hanging fruit?”

Nines rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, though it should have gone without saying that Gavin was incredibly easy. He’d smelled the arousal on him the very first time they met, and back then Nines had just been some random, potentially homicidal stranger walking the night. He pressed a kiss to Gavin’s collar bone. “It’s just… easier being with humans instead of other vampires. Less double talk. No politics. If I’m with a vampire, all I can focus on is what they’re hoping to get out of me once it’s all said and done.” If they really even wanted him or just the doors he could open. “With humans… I already know what they want.” He closed his eyes, pressing his cheek to Gavin’s warm skin. 

Gavin’s hand left his hair to run down the length of his spine. He dug in, dragged his fingers, pulling a low, content sound from Nines the way he might elicit a purr from Tildie. “Glad I’m easy to read,” he said after a moment. “I think you’ve been due for something simple for awhile.”

Nines cracked open an eye. He smiled, trying not to laugh. Gavin’s eyes narrowed. He raised a brow. “What?” 

“You just called yourself simple,” Nines said with a grin. “I suppose I’m surprised you’re so self-aware.”

Gavin just rolled his eyes. “I think I liked you better when you were being all mysterious and scowly. You didn’t sass as much back then.” Despite his words, he kept on stroking Nines’s spine, fingers tracing every divot of his spine. 

“You don’t mean that,” Nines said, rolling off of Gavin to rest on his side. Gavin’s fingers trailed off, his reach not long enough to follow the move. A loss. It was more comfortable like this though. Better for lounging in their post-coital haze. He worried a little at his bottom lip, glancing at Gavin as Gavin drew his arms above his head to stretch like an overgrown cat. Gavin let out a low, content groan and fished for the sheets to cover them up. He looked so at ease. Utterly comfortable, pleased, and… 

Nines bit down on his lip. He looked away, letting Gavin pull the blankets over his waist. 

He’d been presumptuous already this evening. He’d asked for a lot and Gavin had delivered every single time. Why he worried now would be any different, he didn’t know. Only, he did. He’d stopped trusting anyone a long time ago. Maybe it was time he broke that habit. 

“Would you…”

“Hmm?” 

Nines swallowed. He rested his cheek on his arm. “Would you stay up with me?” he asked quietly, trying and failing not to get his hopes up after all Gavin had already done for him. “Just until daybreak, when I fall asleep. Will you keep talking to me like this?”

Gavin rolled onto his shoulder, throwing his arm over Nines’s waist. He gave him a squeeze and pulled him close. Nines shut his eyes. A kiss met his nose. “Anything you want, Nines,” he said, kissing his cheek next, then his lips. “We can do more than just talk too, if that’s something you want too.”

A smile teased Nines’s lips. He opened his eyes and found Gavin—surprise, surprise—only an inch away, his interest alive and well behind his rakish grin. “Only if I want it, right?” he whispered haltingly, letting his hand travel down Gavin’s chest, his stomach, and around his half hard cock. He let his knuckles brush the length. Gavin let out a breath through his nose, his cheeks darkening. 

“Anything you want,” Gavin repeated as he stared into his eyes. 

Nines let out a fond sigh. Fond and a little scared at just how happy that made him. “Thank you,” he said, kissing Gavin once, twice, three times for luck. He threw his thigh over his hip. Gavin laughed lowly and dragged his hands along his skin, content to touch for as long as he possibly could. 

There was no telling what tomorrow might bring. If there was one thing Nines was certain of though, it was that the night could stand to hide them for a little while longer, at least until they had to get up and cover the windows.

He kissed Gavin. It’d be a shame to waste a second of it. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to a wonderful bun, my child @abusivebun on twitter! yall should definitely go check out their art if you get a chance too, it's honestly to die for <3

In Gavin’s experience, morning-afters resided somewhere between early morning root canals and that time he got shit-faced at the Academy on sour green apple vodka and ended up naked in the pool at four in the morning with his dick painted grey like a shark. The hangover had sucked, the pruny skin had sucked worse somehow, and the infamy of Tina’s nickname _Megalodong_ had followed him relentlessly into his adult life. Not his greatest moment contrary to what Tina would try to convince people. But then again, neither had been his last hook-up either. He’d caught her trying to sneak out of his apartment at four in the morning after she tripped over Tildie and nearly broken his entertainment center in the resulting pitch-black fall.  Gavin had thought he was being robbed. Hell, he wished he had been robbed. That would’ve been less shitty to deal with than learning she hadn’t wanted a second date and was hellbent on making sure the topic wasn’t up for discussion.

In the end, she’d gotten her way. It hadn’t been up for discussion. It’d just led to the most awkward four a.m. squabble he’d ever had.

Suffice to say, morning-afters were not his favorite thing in the big candy store of life. They were black licorice if anything, and no sane person would ever willingly choose them when offered literally anything else in its place.

But, Gavin realized as he opened his eyes to a pitch-black room, somehow Nines had a way of destroying every single expectation he had in the most wonderful way possible.

The vampire in question had somehow managed to wrap himself around his chest like a particularly ardent and toothy octopus. Nines’s head was on his chest more than the pillow they were sharing, his soft hair tickling the base of Gavin’s throat. He didn’t breathe like a human might, and he wasn’t warm like a human would be. Still, Gavin couldn’t recall a time he’d ever been more comfortable. At least, as comfortable as you could be with a two hundred pound vampire pressing down on your bladder.

Gavin threw out his hand and reached for his phone on the bedside table. He’d grabbed both his and Nines’s phones last night before falling asleep, somewhere in between the third round and blacking out the windows. He rubbed at his eyes and thumbed at the screen, blinking blearily when the clock told him it was still early as far as his normal schedule went. Still a half hour or so before dawn. A half hour more of this before Nines woke up.

Great.

He didn’t think his bladder could last that long.

“God, you’re lucky your’re pretty,” Gavin muttered, wincing a bit as he tried and failed to extract himself from Nines’s arms. Nines was _heavy_ and he’d piss the bed if he was expected to just lay here until Nines got up and moved himself. Somehow he doubted Nines would wake up, notice, and tell him that it was all fine, he was into that kinda shit. Gavin struggled not to laugh, both for the sanctity of his bladder strength and in defense of the dead sleep Nines still seemed to be enjoying. His life really had taken a change in a really weird direction. He’d be damned if he didn’t love it though.

Still. He needed to get up or his life would take a decided spin in a direction he did not want to take it, especially with Nines dead to the world and unable to run away. Gavin grimaced and began to wiggle to the side, lifting and pushing at Nines’s shoulder when he realized being a little rough wouldn’t wake him up. With a lot of effort and a few creative body undulations, Gavin managed to free himself with a grunt, tipping over the edge of the bed and onto the floor with a dull thud.

Ow. Whatever. No one saw that happen, so clearly it never had. He was free now anyway. He lifted himself to his feet and allowed himself a moment to stretch. Nines was splayed out on his mattress now, head half off the pillow and expression so peaceful that Gavin sorta wanted to watch him for a little while longer. But, nature called. Gavin sighed and drew away from the bed after tugging the sheets a little higher, keeping him covered even though he knew Nines wouldn’t get chilled. He glanced around, biting his lip, and then went ahead and pressed a kiss to Nines’s head. Just one though. He didn’t want to be creepy about this.

He pulled away after brushing his lips over Nines’s cool skin, and then grabbed his boxers from the floor. He practically sprinted to the bathroom to do his business. That dealt with, he decided to run a shower too. He still had work today and just because Nines was still out didn’t mean the world stopped turning too, much as he would prefer otherwise.

His morning routine came and went; he showered, got dressed for work, and finished with brushing his teeth. Every muscle ached with the sweet pain of a night spent active. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to stay up all night fucking instead of sleeping. He was going to be a bitch to deal with at work today, but then again, he supposed that was Tina’s problem, not his.

Gavin opened the bathroom door and headed into the living room, grinning at the thought of tormenting her with all the grisly details. She was going to be so jealous. Her dry spell was nearly as long as his was. Had been. Ha.

A pair of wide, watchful eyes met his the moment he left the hallway. Tildie glared at him from her spot on the couch. A tinge of guilt flickered over Gavin. He’d made her sleep out here for the night, and it was quite clear she hadn’t appreciated it one bit. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, scooping her up into his arms for a kiss. “I’m so awful to you. The worst. Daddy wants to get laid and it just ruins your whole night, doesn’t it?”

She purred and gurgled, bumping his chin with her head. Gavin smiled, bouncing her a little in his arms as he carried her into the kitchen. Breakfast time for the both of them first. He could focus on making amends to her properly later.

“Down you go, Miss T,” he said, setting her on the rug beneath the sink. She didn’t stay seated for long. She followed him as he went over to the cabinet that held her food, then started yowling when he carried it over to her food bowl. She wove between his legs and did her damnedest to trip him, but in the end he was successful. Tildie shoved her face in her bowl and Gavin put away her bag of food. He opened up the fridge next and assessed what he had on hand.

“It feels like a treat-yourself kind of day, Tildie-Silly,” he said, getting nothing back from her beyond the rattling of her dry food in the bowl. Yeah, that checked out. The bare state of his fridge did too. He needed to get to the grocery sometime soon. “Don’t usually get up this early. Might as well make the most of it, right?”

So, he pulled out a package of bacon, a package of sausage, a carton of eggs. On went the stove, on went the skillet. Gavin hummed to himself as he worked. Usually he settled for something simple for breakfast when he bothered to eat it at all. Cereal or toast, a dry bagel if he really had to run the second he threw himself out of bed. Sometimes the alarm didn’t go off. Sometimes Tildie got to it first, knocking the phone under the bed until he couldn’t hear it. Thankfully those days were few and far between. Gavin layered his bacon in the pan and smiled to himself when it began to sizzle. This was nice. Everything was just… nice today.

“Too bad I can’t make him breakfast in bed,” he told Tildie, looking down at her with a wry grin. “Y’know, like they do in those movies? Bring him some tray with the little flower in the vase, the fresh squeezed orange juice.” He’d always thought those sorts of gestures were a bit… cliche. Goofy. The kind of shit better left to the movies. He grabbed a spatula and poked at his bacon, adding in the sausage too. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. A smile tugged at his lips.

Maybe he just hadn’t found the right person to do that kind of thing with.

Of course, he added internally, heading over the fridge to grab the carton of milk for his eggs, he couldn’t do it either way. Not unless he felt like filling that glass with blood instead of orange juice. Or hell, better yet he could just truss himself up in an apron instead and calling that breakfast enough. It’d be more direct. Less dishes to wash. He laughed at the thought and took a swig straight from the carton. God, maybe someday. He was getting ahead of himself thinking like this now. They’d only spent one night together, and Nines hadn’t even woken up yet from it.

He whisked his eggs with milk, seasoned the mix, and set it to the side of the stove. He closed his eyes and just… breathed it all in. His neck twinged when he tilted it to the side, resting his cheek on his shoulder. He brushed his fingers against the bite marks on his neck. They stung but hadn’t looked all that bad in the mirror post-shower. Just two pinprick cuts, some bruising that looked like any other over-exuberant hickey he’d gotten during sex. He’d expected worse, been prepared for worse. What he hadn’t been prepared for, though, was how good it would feel. How nice it was to have Nines rutting against him, drinking from him, as caught up in the need for more as he had been in that moment.

Tildie let out a meow. Gavin glanced over at her. That wasn’t one of her give-me-attention meows. Her head was turned towards the hall. Gavin began to turn around, but before he could manage it, he felt a pair of arms wind around his waist and drag him into a tight embrace. A pair of lips pressed themselves to the bite mark on his neck. Gavin shivered out a laugh. “Well,” he said, lifting a hand to comb through Nines’s hair. “Good morning to you too.”

Instead of a returned good morning or even a mumbled _It’s not morning, genius,_ Nines just managed a garbled groan.

“Not much of a morning person, are you?” he said, turning a little to try and see his face. Nines whined a little, protesting the movement, but in the end he allowed it, loosening his hold enough that Gavin could put his hip to the counter and pat his cheek until he lifted his head. Gavin gave him a smile. Nines’s hair was a mess. The rest of him was… hmm. If Gavin were feeling catty he’d say the rest of him was a mess too, but since Nines had only settled on throwing on his underwear and Gavin’s discarded shirt before coming out here, he felt too spoiled to begrudge himself the view. He’d honestly never looked better.

“You got up,” Nines observed, blinking blearily as he stumbled through his coming to awareness. He looked at Gavin and pouted a little. “Didn’t know where you went.”

“Bad thing about being human is little things like needing to piss and feed the gremlin that lives in your house before she ate me instead. Y’know, little things that don’t wait for the sun to go down before making themselves known.” Speaking of which… Gavin glanced at the clock mounted above the stove. “Damn, you slept a little late, didn’t you?” he asked, nudging Nines when he got a little closer to the stove and began to prod at his food with the spatula. “It’s been dark for nearly an hour.”

Nines frowned at that, but not the sort of frown that meant he was upset or annoyed. Nah, Nines had a frown for every occasion and this one was clearly embarrassment. “I guess I was tired,” he muttered, eyes locked on Gavin’s breakfast. He turned over a piece of sausage and looked over at the waiting mixture of egg. His shoulders relaxed a bit, and his lip quirked upwards. “You wore me out.”

Gavin’s jaw dropped. He rested his hand on the counter and leaned into Nines’s personal space. “Wait, wait, wait,” he said, waving his free hand in the air as if he were swatting at invisible flies. “You’re telling me I wore out a fucking vampire? By _fucking_ said vampire?”

Snorting, Nines pushed away from the stove and began to wander away. “Can I use your shower?” he asked, content to let the conversation die before it had a chance to make Gavin’s entire _life._ He paused when Gavin snagged his hand and drew him back into his space. Nines blinked innocently, a smile gracing his lips. Oh, he looked much more awake now. Teasing was his morning coffee. “Do you need something? Your breakfast is going to burn.”

“Let it fucking burn,” Gavin huffed before drawing Nines in for a kiss.

It blew his mind a little bit how eager Nines was to return it. The teasing nature disappeared as he wrapped his arms around Gavin’s shoulders, fitting himself along his front until there was hardly a hand’s breadth of space between them. The kiss itself was casual, nearly chaste compared to all they’d done the night before. Gavin closed his eyes and let out a quiet groan of contentment. God, he’d probably be able to wean himself off caffeine entirely if he started every single evening like this.

“Mmm,” Nines mumbled, laughing softly as he tried to pull back but kept getting cut off by Gavin’s insistent lips. He turned his head to the side. Gavin just layered his kisses along his cheek and neck instead. “God, Gavin. Shower? Can I use—”

“Mmm, you can use anything you want, babe,” he answered, inhaling the scent of sex and musk entrenched in Nines’s skin. God, he smelled good. Like sandalwood and his own cologne and a bit smokey—

Wait. Gavin’s eyes opened in an instant. He drew his head out from the crook of Nines’s neck just in time to catch sight of his breakfast giving way to black smoke. “Oh, fuck,” he swore, letting go of Nines to drag the pan off the burner. He hit the vent button on the microwave above it, wincing at the charred state of his bacon. So much for a treat-yourself kind of meal.  

“I thought you were willing to let it burn?” remarked Nines as he leaned against the counter, cheeks tinted with a blush. He licked at his glossy lips reflexively. Gavin only let himself stare for a few seconds before going back to his ruined breakfast.

“Sometimes you say shit in the moment to be cool,” he muttered, grimacing as he dumped the contents of the pan into the garbage can. Tildie got up and waltzed over to it, rising up onto her hind legs to peer inside as if she were somehow still interested in the burnt bits of bacon and the ruined sausages. The pan went into the sink next, the water turned on to soften the charr coating the bottom of it. He stared at it with a frown. It eased when Nines wrapped his arms around him from behind, nuzzling his cheek with his own.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Gavin snorted, turning off the water. “Still got eggs.” He probably had half an avocado in the fridge left too. Nothing quite like avocado toast to start a morning. “You think sticking it to the baby boomers is a treat-yourself kind of breakfast?”

Nines laughed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Gavin let out a sigh. “Yeah, you probably wouldn’t.” He turned in Nines’s arms, looking up at him with a smile. “Go take a shower before I burn down my entire kitchen next, alright? Use whatever you want. Towels are in the closet in the bathroom.”

They kissed. Nines smiled into it. “Sounds good,” he said, pulling away reluctantly. Gavin ran his hands down Nines’s arms, squeezing his hands before letting go. Nines looked away, cheeks tinted with a blush that probably was only there because of how much he’d been able to feed the night before. “Eat your breakfast,” he said, heading towards the hall. He glanced over his shoulder only once. “You look pretty worn out too.”

He disappeared as Gavin snorted, turning back towards his waiting eggs. He fished out a non-burnt pan and put it on the burner. “Yeah,” he remarked, nudging Tildie with his foot when she plopped down on the floor in front of the oven. “Maybe that happens when you spend the night with a sexy vampire. I’m not complaining though,” he told her, pouring his eggs into the pan. “Are you?”

Tildie purred. It was answer enough.

He sliced his avocado, pleased to see it was only a tiny bit brown and still perfectly serviceable. Normally he’d mash it and douse it in lime, but after the first failed breakfast, he really didn’t have the patience for it. It was enough effort already to keep the bread from burning.

He checked his eggs and was just about to take it off the heat when he heard the bathroom door close and the shower turn on. Tildie only tried to trip him a couple of times, and she didn’t even try scaling the island to get at his food when he sat down with his toast on a plate and his phone out to check his emails. He read as he ate, the shower a vague sort of white noise that soothed him more than anything. It was nice to know there was someone else here in the apartment with him. Comforting.

His phone, on the other hand, brought the opposite. He had a few texts from Tina, a few emails from various stores telling him about sales and his favorite food delivery service advertising its restaurants of the month. He barely read that one; the good places never had deals when he wanted them. “Delete, delete,” he muttered, swiping them away until he got to the work related ones. He frowned when he scanned over the oldest one, then frowned even more at the new ones. He set down his phone and gave up on reading the rest. He’d spoil his appetite if he kept this up. 

Tildie waddled over to him and bumped her head against his ankle, sensing his distraction and taking it as the opportunity it was. Gavin swallowed his mouthful of bread and egg and avocado and looked down at her. He tried for a smile. “It’s fine, baby,” he said with a sigh, closing out of the app on his phone with a few taps of his finger. He’d read the rest once he got in later. “They think they found another body is all.” It’d be the last body too, he resolved. They knew who they were looking for now. They’d end this soon enough, one way or another. 

The shower turned off and the door opened. Speak of the devil. Gavin lifted his head, expecting to feel arms around his shoulders and lips to his cheek. Instead of coming back out into the living room though, Nines’s footsteps drifted away as he went deeper into the apartment. Gavin popped the last bite of his breakfast into his mouth and pushed away from the island. “I’ll be right back, sweetie,” he told his cat before he followed him down the hall and back into his room. Here was a good way to cheer him up before he went off to work for another eight hours of staring at bodies printed on the paperwork he’d been ignoring.

And yeah, this was a much better view. Much better. Gavin leaned against the door frame to appreciate the sight of Nines naked but for a towel, wet from his shower and as beautiful as a Greek statue. The— Oh, there went the towel. Nice, nice. Nines grabbed for his pants and gave him a put upon look when he pulled them on and caught Gavin watching. How long had it taken for him to get clean? They’d… done it more than once last night. It hadn’t been the cleanest thing ever. Maybe next time Nines would drag him into the shower too. To help, of course. Just help.

If he didn’t think of something different real soon, he’d probably make them both late undoing all the good Nines’s shower had done him.

“So,” Gavin coughed as his eyes traced up and down the vampire’s body. Despite the shirt Nines had left here being in plain sight, Nines still choose to dig through his dresser for something to wear instead. Nice. “What are our plans for the night?” he asked, blinking a bit when the casual domesticity of that question hit him right between the eyes. Jesus, it sounded like they were married or something.

Nines didn’t seem to notice the nuptials in the room. He didn’t seem to mind much as he let his towel drop to the floor and proceeded to dress himself in Gavin’s clothing. “Well, for starters I need to go check in with my boss,” he said, voice muffled by the fabric of the shirt covering his head. It was one of his concert t-shirts, something he’d picked up a few years back and took every opportunity he had to wear when he wasn’t dressed for work. “You, on the other hand,” he said as he finally managed to wrangle the shirt into place, “are going to go to work.”

“Well, yeah. But after that.” It wasn’t as if work had ever stopped them from doing their own shit before. “We know who the guy is. Are we going to bust him tonight or what?”

Nines rested his hands on his hips. The sleeves of the t-shirt strained a little around his biceps. Gavin felt his heart beat a little faster; leave it to Nines to look good in anything. “We’re going to be involving the Enforcers after I report in,” he said, fidgeting a little as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “There are certain procedures that have to occur before we confront him. Tonight’s probably not the night for it.” He twisted his lips into a grimace. “You probably won’t be involved in the final collar at all.”

Gavin pushed away from the door frame. “Excuse me?” he asked, closing the distance between them. “I worked this case too. What do you mean I won’t be involved?”

A sigh answered him. Nines fiddled with the hem of the shirt, looking at it instead of Gavin. “It’s dangerous, Gavin,” he said, glancing at him to judge how he took it. He winced when their eyes met; Gavin figured his expression didn’t look promising. “There are protocols to this sort of thing, and since it’s a vampire and not a human we need to operate on my side of the law.”

“You mean the vampiric side,” Gavin said blandly. “Not, you know, the actual law. The vampire side where it’s common practice to kill people instead of arrest them.”

“Do you _want_ to arrest Devon and Dillan?” Nines asked, furrowing his brow. “Logistics of building a cell equipped to handle a vampire aside, do you really think it’d be permitted for your department to learn about what we are?” He ran a hand through his damp hair, looking overwhelmed at the thought alone. He looked at Gavin. “Letting you into the fold alone was…” He bit down viciously on his bottom lip. “Can we… Look, can we just talk about this later? I knew you wouldn’t be happy about this but time isn’t on our side right now to hash it all out until you are.”

Gavin wanted to argue. This was his collar. _Theirs,_ honestly. They should share the credit and share in the satisfaction of bringing the culprits to justice. He wanted to argue about it until he got his way, because he was persistent like that. He’d get his way, but… God. Nines was staring up at him through his lashes, pink cheeked and wearing his clothes, fidgeting like he really didn’t want to argue after the night they’d shared together.

On some level, Gavin felt the same. Nines hadn’t had many good things in his life. Giving him one good morning—evening—after was the least he could do for him.

It only took a couple of steps to close the distance between them. Nines blinked, tensed up a little, but he relaxed easily enough when Gavin wrapped his arms around his waist and drew him in for a hug. “Yeah,” he murmured, burying his face in the crook of Nines’s neck. He could smell his shampoo on his skin and it was going straight to his head in the worst way. “But we are going to talk about it later. I don’t care what you vamps get up to, but this is my collar too, okay? I gotta see the results for myself before I wash my hands of it.”

“I think that’s more than fair. I’ll talk to my boss about it.” Nines squeezed him back, relaxing so easily against his chest. He tilted his chin and let out a soft whine until Gavin got the message and pressed their lips together. The kiss was short but heartfelt. Nines pulled away when Gavin didn’t want to. “Just hold tight, okay?” he said, stroking Gavin’s cheek with his hand. His eyes were so fucking blue. “I’ll text you when we’re ready to make a move. You’ll wait for me, right?”

“I dunno,” Gavin said, leaning into his hand. “Do I get another kiss if I behave?”

Nines rolled his pretty eyes. There was something so fond in the motion, something so utterly charmed that Gavin felt his heart stutter like a schoolgirl watching her crush up close. “You can have something better than a kiss,” Nines told him, leaning in until their lips barely brushed. His eyes fell to half-mast. “So long as you do as you’re told.”

Oh, such incentive. Gavin would probably rob a bank with promises like that hovering over his head. He grinned at Nines and let him pull away, though he made sure to hold on for as long as he could anyway. “Let me give you a ride to work,” he said, unwilling to just let things end already. “I can drop you off on my way to the station.”

Nines was across the room now, stooping down to reach for his discarded socks that had made it underneath the bed somehow. He looked over his shoulder with a smile as he scooped them up. “You don’t even know where I’m going,” he said, rising back up with sinuous grace just to plop back down on the edge of the bed. He looked at his socks and wrinkled his nose, putting them back on anyway.

Gavin shrugged. “It’s gotta be close enough for you to walk to,” he figured. Nines had cute feet, he noticed. Huh. They were gone in the next moment. The socks went on and Nines was back on his feet, moving towards the door. “Don’t tell me you want to be walking out there. It’s fucking cold out. What if you freeze your ass off before I get the chance to fuck it again?”

A bark of laughter answered him. Nines disappeared through the door and Gavin chased after him and his laugh, hungry for more. “Glad to see your priorities are in order,” he said, pausing at the front door where he’d left his shoes the night before. Tildie was near them, stretched out and lounging over the mat that covered the floor and protected it from muddy footprints. She’d have road salt and dirt in her fur for her efforts, but that was Gavin’s problem, not hers. Nines didn’t seem to mind; he cooed at her as he tugged his shoes out from beneath her, kissing her head to keep her from protesting the movement too much.

Usually it smarted when someone was better with Tildie than him. Looking at Nines’s smile though, and how Tildie so eagerly leapt to her feet to lean her head into his palm… Gavin looked away, his cheeks hurting from the force of his smile. It felt warm like this. It felt warm having Nines so near.

But eventually Tildie had her fill and sought greener pastures. Nines left her with a kiss to the head and watched her wander back towards the sofa and all the mysteries it held. They both followed her with their eyes up until her bottlebrush tail disappeared around the couch. Silence descended. Nines lifted himself back onto his feet, shoes in hand, and began putting them on.  

Gavin watched for a moment. Then, he cleared his throat. “You sure you don’t want a ride?”

Nines shook his head, toeing on his shoes. “Thanks, but it’s probably better if you don’t know where the headquarters is.” He braced his hand against the wall and hopped until the final shoe slipped on. He gave Gavin a nonchalant smile. “You’re not that far from the people mover. I’ll be fine.”

Gavin glanced at the clock in the kitchen. He frowned. He didn’t like the idea of Nines riding it this late at night, but then again, Nines could clearly take care of himself. He dragged his hand down his face and nodded reluctantly. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you, then,” he said, letting his hand fall to his side. Nines reached for the door, opening it as he hooked his fingers in Gavin’s shirtfront and reeled him in for another kiss.

“You’ll see me when it’s time to end all of this,” he promised, the kiss sweeter than the words. He pulled back a little with a tiny little smile on his lips. “I’ll text you, okay? Have a good night at work.”

“Yeah,” Gavin sighed, hating when Nines slipped through his fingers and made to leave. “Have a good night at… your work... too.” God, he sounded lame. It earned him a smile either way, so there was that at least.

Nines flicked his fingers in a wave, and then he was out the door. It closed behind him. Gavin was alone. He exhaled and looked down at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. He didn’t have a whole lot of time left before he needed to leave too. He let out a groan at the thought and knelt, reaching for his boots. No use in denying the inevitable.

Of course, being on the floor invited another kind of distraction. A soft nudge bumped Gavin’s hip. He looked down and caught sight of a familiar pair of eyes, a twitching pair of ears. Tildie meowed at him weakly, nudging at him a little harder for the pets she was being denied. He gave them to her easily. He even smiled at her, soothed by her simplicity in the wake of how wild his life had become.

Tildie purred loudly as she climbed into his lap. She rubbed her head against his chin, sniffing at his face. “You like Nines too, huh?” he asked, noticing how she moved her attention to his neck, licking with her scratchy tongue over the bruising bite mark on his nape. He ran his hand down her back with a sigh. “Me too, Miss T. Me too.”

Before long though, her licking became a bit too abrasive. Gavin pulled away from her, gathering her under his arm to stand up and act like the adult he was. He couldn’t sit on the floor all night; he had a job to get to and case files to add to. He looked down at Tildie as she hung from his arm like a limp noodle. Gavin cracked a smile. He pulled her up for a proper kiss before setting her back on the floor. She wasn’t happy about it, but then again, he wasn’t either. If it was up to him he’d stay here all night and tell her just how much he liked the vampire wearing his clothes.

Gavin grabbed his coat from where it was hanging and then grabbed his keys, wallet, and gun from the counter nearby. He let out a sigh when Tildie seemed determined to trip him at every turn. She even meowed at him when he opened the door. Gavin rolled his eyes, glad he now had two creatures in his life intent on lecturing him to death.

“For the record, I think I could take a vampire,” he told Tildie as he closed the door and locked it behind him.

After all, he took one last night and lived to tell, didn’t he?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we hit the 100k mark!! five more chapters too, so i think i can definitively say this fic is gonna be a fuckin monster. anyway, enjoy gavin's bad ideas avalanching into a veritable catastrophe !

It was rarely a good sign to see the precinct bustling with fervor and frantic energy this late at night. Gavin dodged out of the way of Ben Collins, shoulder nearly clipping the man’s coffee as he darted towards the parking lot with as much speed as his short, stubby legs could afford him. 

“Sorry, Reed!” he shouted behind him, words garbled by the keys in his mouth as he struggled to put on his coat one-handed. Some of his coffee sloshed to the floor. It was a testament to Ben’s hurry that he didn’t even seem to notice. 

“It’s f— and you’re already gone,” Gavin answered, starting loud but ending it on a mutter. He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. Busy night then. The parking lot had boasted a lot more than the usual half a dozen cars the night shift offered up, so something big must’ve happened during the day. Gavin let out a low whistle and flashed his badge to the security staff ahead. He nodded his head to the attendant and headed into the waiting elevator. 

Gavin took a swig from his thermos of coffee. He stared bleary eyed at the ticking lights on the button panel. His head was the furthest thing from work tonight, and given what he’d just had in his orbit not even an hour ago, he couldn’t bring himself to be surprised. The coffee was fragrant and warm, but every breath he took tasted like Nines. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, positive he could still imagine the cool touch of the vampire’s lips against his own every time he ran his tongue over them, chasing stray drops of his drink. It made him antsy, the feeling. He’d been in several relationships and he couldn’t recall even one of them sticking to him the way this one did now. 

_ Well, that’s probably why you aren’t in those relationships anymore,  _ a smarmy, self-aware voice whispered in his ear as the elevator door opened. The others had all hated how much he worked, how he always brought the job home with him. He’d forget dates to moonlight. He’d remember case details clearer than birthdays or food preferences. They’d put up with it for a month or two and then let him know—sometimes kindly, sometimes not so kindly—that it wasn’t going to work out.  

Somehow, Gavin didn’t feel that impending sort of end with Nines. In fact, as Gavin moved towards the bullpen, he fought a blush; for all the relationships he’d ever had, this one might be the one to actually make him like a person more than his damn job. 

He paused once he hit the main office area, good mood halted by the mess of productivity before him. Half the desks he was used to seeing empty during the night shift were occupied, the rest either filled with the usual suspects or vacated by officers on their feet and chasing down someone else with a file clutched in their hand or another cup of coffee precariously balanced on top of a stack of folders. Gavin stared at faces he hadn’t seen in months. What the fuck was going on in here?

He took a step closer to the mayhem and immediately lurched forward as something clipped his shoulder from behind. “Move it or lose it, Reed,” a gruff voice muttered. Gavin turned his head and caught the scant sight of Lieutenant Anderson bustle past him, eyes dark with heavy bags and a grimace on his face that didn’t make Gavin at all confident about the way his shift was going to go. 

“What’s going...” Gavin didn’t bother finishing his question. He pursed his lips together and frowned. Anderson was already gone, disappearing into one of the halls with a few barked orders shouted over his shoulder for good measure. He wasn’t going to get answers from him, that was for sure. 

Gavin wove around bodies and made his way to his desk with only a few small hiccups. There was a splash of coffee on his pants leg from Detective Collins’s mug, upset by his quick pace and Gavin’s unfortunate interference. Whatever. Gavin shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the back of his chair. He looked around the bullpen and searched for someone—anyone—who wasn’t buried neck deep in files or running laps around the room like some sort of chicken with its head cut off.   

After a minute or to of careful searching, he couldn’t find anyone that fit the bill. Gavin sighed. “Guess I’ll just go for who’s easiest,” he muttered, locking eyes on Tina from across the room. Or the least likely to deck him for getting in their way.

Tina was more the former than the latter when it came to her current level of engagement in the office anarchy. Her desk was piled high with folders and files, her dual monitors both filled with more of the same. Her blanket had fallen down from her shoulders and was pooled in her lap. She absentmindedly tipped coffee into her mouth with one hand and used the other to navigate the long stream of white currently filling her monitors. Whatever it was she was reading, it had her practically dead to the world. 

Now that he’d had some practice navigating the carnage, Gavin found his way to her desk with only mild interference. He dodged and wove, bypassing Person’s frantic sprint toward the back office and their office secretary’s fevered rounds with the coffee tray. When Gavin reached Tina’s desk, he pressed himself as close to her chair as he could. He was safe like this, he told himself. They couldn’t trample the both of them without Tina unleashing hell for the attempt. 

That is, if Tina even cared enough to notice. She barely registered his clinging, and it wasn’t until he settled his hands on her shoulders that she saw fit to break her staring contest with the screen. Her eyes flicked up towards him for a split second before returning to the mess of words in front of her. Jesus, she looked worn out.

“What do you want, Gavin?” she asked, voice haggard and worn despite the fact that she couldn’t have been here more than twenty minutes longer than him. Their shifts started at the same time but she always seemed to beat him in regardless. 

“It’s hell in the office, Chen,” he said, jiggling the back of her chair until she looked at him again. “What do you think I want?”

“A piece of the action?” she returned, brow raised. “You need to go see Anderson, ask him for an assignment. It’s all hands on deck and you’re gonna get yelled at if you don’t get busy too.”

He snorted. “Since when did we do all hands on deck? And I saw Anderson already and he nearly bulldozed me over. Not really keen on repeating the experience.” Or traversing the office again to try and find him. Gavin tried to do a quick headcount but gave up when people kept moving. This really was out of left field. They  _ never  _ got pulled in for things like this. They were regular officers, night shift even. Unless the mayor had gotten herself kidnapped, it wasn’t exactly in their usual line of duties to help with casework or file crunching or whatever it was Tina had up on her screen. Though… 

Oh, shit. Gavin’s face fell. He ducked down to skim the writing. The word  _ deceased  _ stuck out to him in several places. “Did someone shoot up a store or something?”

Tina’s shoulders slumped. “No,” she muttered, tapping at the mouse to realign a few windows. “Nothing like that. You really should go talk to Anderson. Seriously.”

Gavin leaned over Tina’s shoulder, squeezing the other gently. God, she was as stiff as a marble statue. “Seriously, what the hell is going on?” he pressed. Her computer screen was a mess of half-smothered windows, multiple case files up and photographs and autopsy reports stacked on top of one another until it was nearly impossible to make out what file went with what photo. Whatever she was looking at, it looked downright grisly. 

His view was cut off abruptly by Tina swaying into his field of vision, blocking the monitor with her frown. “You really can’t be getting briefed like this from me; it’s against regulations.”

“Briefed?” Gavin balked. “What the hell do I need briefed on?”

Tina bit at her lip. She glanced around but no one was paying them any attention. Tina leaned in. “Didn’t you get the email?” she whispered, narrowing her eyes. “They found another body, Gavin. It was… way worse than the others were.”

Shit, maybe he should’ve read all the emails, ruined appetite be damned. “I might have skimmed after the first five, and not to be an ass, but how bad is  _ worse? _ ‘Cause I don’t know if you saw, but those crime scenes were already pretty fucking bad.” He waved his hand around at the general state of the bullpen. “Like, how much worse could it have gotten to require all of this? Hell, even the Lieutenant’s in here and we both know how he refuses to drag his ass out of bed unless it’s something big.” Last he heard, drained and dead prostitutes didn’t make the cut on most of the DPD’s list of priorities. 

Tina bit down on her lip hard enough to turn the flesh white. There wasn’t an ounce of mirth in her. Her eyes were dark with bags and red from strain. How the hell had she gotten this bad already? She kneaded at her brow and sighed, shrugging weakly. “You got lucky with your day off, Gav. Real lucky.” She glanced up at him. “If it’d been you who found this body… God, I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Because it was that bad?”

Tina shook her head. Her face paled. “Because whoever it was that did it was caught in the act,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. Not the first time she’d done it that night, either; her usually pristine ponytail was messy with flyaways. She met Gavin’s eyes. “Really. You need to go see the Lieutenant for orders. It’s—”

Gavin caught her hand before she could go for the mouse again. He squeezed it firmly. “Tina, what happened?” Caught in the act? There couldn’t have been a collar, so… Oh. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “What… Tina, what happened to the cop?” he asked, mind racing, chest tight. 

Her eyes fell. “He died, Gavin. Bled out by the time the ambulance arrived.”

Shit.  _ Shit.  _ Gavin sucked in a harsh breath and reassessed the bullpen with new eyes. No wonder everyone was running around. No wonder the Lieutenant was out of bed and barking orders like that. Gavin slowly let go of Tina’s hand. He needed it to cover his mouth. This wasn’t good at all. He needed to tell Nines that their job just got a whole lot more complicated. 

“Gavin?”

He lifted his head. Tina patted his arm. “I’m glad you had the day off,” she said, voice breaking a little towards the end. “I don’t know what I’d do if that had been you.”

“Yeah,” he said, dropping his hand. It easily could’ve been too. Might’ve too, if Nines hadn’t brought him into the fold. Gavin let out a shaky breath. He tried for a smile and squeezed Tina’s shoulder. “Me too.”

They parted after a few more meaningful looks and mumbled reassurances. The walk back to his desk was dull and oddly quiet despite the craziness and carnage still cycling through the office like a tornado. It was growing though, louder and louder with every breath he took and every thought that gained traction inside his head. Gavin settled into his desk chair with a sigh, staring blankly at his blank monitor until the hustle and bustle of the office grew too loud to block out. He rubbed at his eyes and fished into his pocket for his phone. Through the cracks in his fingers he keyed in his passcode and thumbed over Nines’s contact info. He hit call. 

_ Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Click—  _

“This is Nines,” that familiar voice said.

“Oh, God, I have so much I need to—” 

“Please leave a message.”  _ Click.  _

Gavin lowered the phone and stared at the contact screen. He furrowed his brow and hit call again. He hunched his shoulders and tried to look busy as the phone rang and rang and— 

“This is Nines,” the voice said again. “Please leave a message.”

“Fuck,” Gavin hissed, kneading at his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “Jesus, answer your phone? You-know-who is a fucking cop-killer now and I don’t think I need to tell you how bad that is.” They were never going to be able to move quietly if the entire DPD was now on the fucking case. “Call me back,” he said. How the hell had his night gone from domestic post-coital bliss to this? 

Gavin lowered his phone. He hit the end call button and fired off a few text messages too, just in case. Spamming Nines probably wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had, but if there was one thing that would convey the seriousness of this, it’d be blowing up his phone with as many notifications as he could manage. What was he even doing right now? Gavin glanced at the clock on the far wall. Nines had left his place around seven? Eight? His work was apparently close to the people mover, so he had to be at the Enforcer headquarters right now. Was he in a meeting? 

“—ed? Reed?” A sharp crack hit the corner of his desk and Gavin jumped in his seat. He looked up and was met with the sight of Lieutenant Anderson in front of him, out of breath and a thick stack of folders beneath his hand. “Finally wake up? For Christ's sake, man. There’s an officer dead and you’re stuck daydreaming.” 

Oh. Great. Gavin did his best to look contrite. There were a lot of reasons why he prefered night shift and this was damn sure one of the more compelling ones. He put on a smile anyway. Promotions didn’t come to those who glared at their superiors, even if they were cranky dickbags. 

“Sorry, sir,” he said, glancing down at the files now on his desk. “Those for me?”

“Well, it sure isn’t a pillow for you to nap on,” the Lieutenant muttered, shoving them towards Gavin before lifting his hand to stroke at his beard. His eyes were bloodshot, his face haggard. He looked more than worn out, and for that Gavin figured he could overlook the condescending attitude. Hank’s eyes scanned the bullpen before settling on Gavin. “We’re pulling every file we’ve got that even vaguely resembles this shithead’s M.O. That’s your share.” He nodded towards the files. It had to be ten inches thick. 

Gavin swallowed. “Have we got anything to go on?” he asked, pulling the files closer. “Was there any… evidence at the crime scene? Weird blood stains, strange… strange entry wounds?”

Hank’s eyes, which had been drifting longingly towards the break room, snapped back on Gavin in an instant. They narrowed. “What do you mean?” he asked, leaning over Gavin with every inch of his considerable height he had. “You got something to say, Reed?”

“Just wondering what I need to look for to find correlations, sir,” Gavin said, blood pounding in his ears. 

“Look for drained corpses, Reed,” Hank said tersely. “Puncture wounds. Bodies in places they don’t belong and the sick sonofabitch who put them there.” He rose up to full height, pulling away from Gavin’s desk. “I want all cylinders firing until we catch this cop-killing fucker.” 

A few people near enough to hear let out sounds of agreement. Gavin felt his stomach drop into his boots, and he watched as Anderson set off towards the back offices once more. Anyone dumb enough to be in his warpath quickly darted out of his way. He cut a channel straight through the chaos before he disappeared completely down the hall once more. 

Gavin let out a harsh breath. He looked down at the files in front of him and immediately recognized the cramped, messy handwriting scrawled over the tabs. They were the old cult files from the seventies, the ones he had photocopies of back at home. Shit. They were getting closer to the truth, and even if the DPD was several weeks behind his own investigation, it’d taken Gavin weeks to put that much together on his own. They’d found a considerable number of bodies since then, and with the whole police force burning the midnight oil in search of the killer, he knew better than to imagine it taking them more than a day, maybe two, to catch the fuck up. 

Gavin pushed the files to the side and used their height like a wall. He dipped down behind it and dragged his phone into his hand. He stabbed the screen over Nines’s name. 

_ Please,  _ he prayed, leg bouncing beneath his desk.  _ Please pick up.  _

“This is Nines,” the answering machine said. “Please leave a message.”

“This is your last chance,” Gavin said, the words tumbling out faster than his brain could process them. “You have five minutes.” He hung up. 

He waited. 

The screen of his phone went black a minute in. Gavin thumbed over it. It went black. Another minute. He lifted his head and looked around the room at the hunched shoulders and loud voices coming from the back rooms. Off towards the break room he could just hear low, solemn voices. Someone was crying. He wondered who felt this loss harder than the rest of them. He… He wondered who had the poor luck to run his patrol route on his night off. 

The screen had gone black by the time he looked back down at it. He thumbed over it. Six minutes had passed. 

Alright. Nines had his chance. 

Gavin stood up. He grabbed his keys. He grabbed his gun. He whipped his coat off the back of his chair and stomped over to Tina’s desk. “Cover for me,” he said, grabbing the pen out of her hand and the nearest sheet of paper he could reach from the stack on her desk. She began to snap at him for writing all over one of her official forms, but Gavin just spoke louder, “I’m going to go do something. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, I want you to call this number.” 

Tina closed her mouth with a click. She looked down at the number. “Gavin, what the hell are you about to do?” She scrambled to grab the paper when Gavin shoved it into her chest. She looked down at it, reading it with furrowed brow. “Whose number is thi—”

He grabbed Tina by the hand, cutting her off before she could finish. “Tina,” he said, and something in his tone must have conveyed to her how serious this really was. “Just call that number. Tell him I didn’t stay in the car. He’ll know what it means.”

“Gavin.” Her eyes were sharp, searching. Her lips turned downwards into a tight, worried frown. “Seriously. What’s going on?”

The only reassurances he could give her would be lies. “Nothing soon enough,” he said, pulling away. She was too tangled up in her blanket to chase after him anyway. He met her eyes, trying for a smile, but it fell when he looked over her shoulder and caught sight of the Lieutenant on his way back into the room. “Watch the clock!” he told her, nearly sprinting towards the door. “I’ll text you once it’s done!”

“When what’s done?” she called after him, but Gavin had already turned the corner. 

Yeah, he was going to have hell to pay for that. He apologized to her silently, then resolved to do so again in person once this was all said and done. He threw on his coat and eschewed the elevator entirely, making for the stairs instead. If someone caught him in the elevator and dragged him back into the bullpen… God, he didn’t even want to consider how bad that would be. Tina would handcuff him to her desk and waterboard him until he explained everything to her, and then he’d have the Lieutenant to deal with on top of it, too, no doubt. He moved as quickly as he could down the stairs and cracked open the door once he reached ground level. Getting out unseen would be key here. He didn’t have time to let anyone get in his way. 

Thankfully that wasn’t easier said than done. Most of the staff was already upstairs, any late stragglers too confused and bleary-eyed at being dragged out of bed on an off-night to bother looking twice at him once he hit the lobby. Gavin kept his head down and ducked out the door, barely a confused goodbye directed at his back by the same guard he’d passed coming in. 

The cold air hit him hard the moment he was outside, stinging his cheeks, cutting through his layers. The full force of winter was finally upon them now, and Gavin didn’t let it hammer him long before unlocking his car and closing the door behind him.

His breath clouded the air in quick, steady bursts. He fumbled for the keys, the ignition. His phone began to vibrate. Gavin pulled it out as semi-warm air, still somewhat hot from the drive here, poured from the vents. He frowned at the screen.  _ Pussy Galore.  _ Not the person he needed to be talking to right now. He hit ignore and pulled out of the parking lot. 

He made it about a mile down the road before the nerves began to hit, first in his left leg and then in his jaw. The muscles tensed, bounced, twitched as his breath came a little sharper. He drove with one hand wrapped around his cellphone, waiting,  _ praying,  _ that it would light up with the one name he wanted to see right now. There was no time to wait or hold off; either Nines would be there to back him up, or he’d do this alone.

Fuck. A drop of sweat rolled down his cheek, disappearing into his collar. Gavin bit down viciously on his lip and drove a little faster. The streets rushed by, a few red lights ran without much care to the possible—if unlikely—traffic that could be around the corner. Gavin clutched his phone tight and came to a stop in front of the house he’d visited only a week or so before. It looked the same for the most part. Dusted with snow, lit with a faint light, and housing a pair of murderers who’d killed a cop not even twenty-four hours ago. 

The tension eased in Gavin’s chest. He inhaled and let it out after a pause. He couldn’t wait and let the vampires handle this. Not at their own pace, not when it’d mean letting these killers go free another minute longer. 

He closed his eyes and thumbed over his phone screen. One last chance. Then, he’d go in.   

Gavin dialed the number. He opened his eyes as he counted the rings, each one tolling like a bell announcing a wake. He clenched his jaw when the answering machine started its spiel. Fine. The phone went back into his pocket; he could handle this on his own just fine. He knew more now than he had with Ryker, so he knew this would be different already. He had his gun. Hell, he’d have backup on the way once Nines got it in his head to answer his damn phone. Gavin squared his jaw and got out of his car. He stared up at the house before him. One way or another, this all ended tonight. 

His blood ran hot while the cold wind cut him to the quick. Gavin rested one hand on his gun as he approached the door, steeling himself with one last deep, bracing breath. He rapped on the door with his knuckles. “Police!” he shouted, knowing that there’d be no hiding it once they saw his uniform. “Open up!”

Shuffling. Thudding. The door opened half a minute later, cracking all of two inches to reveal a set of narrowed eyes. “Yes?” the person asked, Devon or Dillon, Gavin couldn’t tell. “What do you want, Officer?”

“I’ve had a call related to a possible domestic disturbance at this address,” he lied easily, sounding more confident than he felt. “Please open the door and step outside, sir.”

A flash of frustration glinted off those steel colored eyes. The door closed just enough to unlatch the chain lock, and then it opened to reveal a familiar face. 

Well, a somewhat familiar face.

“Oh,” the man murmured, the distrust disappearing to reveal something much more malign. His lips quirked into a grin. “It’s you. The  _ detective. _ I was wondering when I’d get the chance to meet you too.”

Gavin furrowed his brow. He wrapped his hand a little tighter around his gun. “Excuse me?” he said, not seeing recognition in those eyes. That meant… Oh, shit. This wasn’t Devon. This wasn’t the human brother, and that… God, that was something Gavin hadn’t quite counted on. 

Dillon—and it had to be Dillon—grinned. “Did you bring backup with you, by any chance?”  

Fuck. 

The fear must have read on his face. The grin just grew wider. “Why don’t you come inside?” the man said, voice low and silken, dragging like cobwebs along Gavin’s nerves. A faint pressure accompanied the words. Dillon’s gaze was intense, wide-eyed and eager like Devon, but this time it actually carried weight. Gavin’s fingers loosened on the butt of his gun. 

“I don’t... I shouldn’t—” Oh, shit. He was being compelled. 

A hand reached out as quick as a whip, snagging Gavin by the wrist to tear his hand from his weapon. Gavin fought it, tried to at any rate, but he barely managed to unclip the strap before he found himself dragged over the threshold. 

“I think that’s enough of that,” the vampire said, eyes glinting as the pressure increased. “You really, really should listen to me. Come inside, Officer. I’d hate to break your hand just to make you accept.”

It’d been awhile, weeks in fact, since Gavin had felt this particular brand of sick, pervasive pressure behind his eyes. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as it washed over him in a light, nudging wave. It wasn’t too strong yet— at least, not compared to the grip Dillon had on his hand, but that wasn’t due to lack of ability. This vampire was still asking him, coaxing him; if he wanted to make Gavin move, he could.

Gavin knew he could.

“This is assault of an officer,” Gavin spat, fighting against the hand holding him in place. 

“You act like I care.” A sharp, downward yank to his arm, hard enough to nearly wrench the limb from its socket, killed the fight in him before it could get him anywhere. “I think we both know why you’re here and what you think you’ve come to do. Why don’t you save yourself some time? Cut the bullshit before I cut you.” 

Shit, shit,  _ shit.  _ “You sound really sure of yourself,” Gavin said. “What if this is a house call?”

A laugh. “I’d call it delivery instead,” the vampire hissed. His breath was cold where he leaned in, scenting him the way he’d seen Nines do before. There was a pause; could he smell Nines on him? God, he hoped not. Gavin tried to struggle— Dillon tightened his grip instead. 

The scenting only lasted another few second before Dillon pulled away. Gavin averted his eyes instinctively. His heart hammered in his chest. Dillon was still a fledgling, but it was clear now that something like age didn’t impact just how dangerous a vampire could be. He didn’t stand a chance if he tried to break the grip holding him in place, and he knew better than most that even if he did, he’d be pinned down before he managed to make it to the street. 

An image of that rose up behind his eyes, his body all bloodless and arranged like roadkill for Nines to find. Gavin withheld a wince. No, he needed to stay alive until Nines could get here. No running, no unnecessary risks. Playing along and giving in until an opening arose would be his best bet. 

The door closed behind him, snapping him back to the present. Dillon tugged at his arm. Gavin followed, even when every step he took away from the door added another nail to his proverbial coffin lid. 

Gavin licked at his lips. “So,” he whispered, voice loud in the oppressive silence of the entryway. A small table rested against the wall, holding a phone, a dusty vase of dead flowers, and a tarnished silver frame with a picture of a dead-eyed family. There wasn’t time to search for the twins in it. Gavin figured it’d be better to ask directly. “Where’s your brother?”

The vampire glanced over his shoulder. Gavin didn’t look at him long. “You know I have a brother,” he murmured. He yanked on Gavin’s wrist, nearly jerking him off his feet as he deposited him in a familiar living room. There was no cozy set up this time, no movie on mute or popcorn waiting in a bowl. The entire house was silent but for Gavin’s quickening breaths. The vampire ducked down a little to catch his eye. He smiled and let his tiny baby fangs catch the light as he mused, “That’s interesting.”

What’s interesting was how this fucker made tiny little baby teeth look threatening. Gavin sucked in a sharp breath through his nose. “Not really. You’re Dillon, right?” It was obvious the difference between them, even though Gavin did his best to avoid eye contact at all cost. Dillon was still thin, still gangly, washed out like his brother but without that underfed, insomniac look about him. His hair was maybe a shade darker, his chin wider. “Wait, don’t answer that. We should probably leave some mystery between us. It’d suck to ruin it before we’ve even had the chance to monologue at each other.”

“Sounds like you know me. Funny thing is,” he mused, dipping his free hand into Gavin’s coat and pockets to divest him of his keys, his cuffs, the belt around his waist, and most damning of all, his phone, “I don’t think I know you.” He ripped the coat off Gavin’s arms and threw it into the corner, and when Gavin threw up his hands to shove him away, Dillon laughed and struck him in the chest, knocking the air right out of his lungs. “I know your scent though. You’ve been here before. I wonder why that is?” 

With him doubled over and his mouth gaping for breath, Dillon made quick work of divesting him of anything useful. The handful of confiscated goods hit the coffee table with a loud clatter. Somehow Gavin felt more naked with it gone than with his coat. 

“I’ll give you three guesses,” Gavin wheezed, bristling like Tildie when the vacuum cleaner came out to play. He forced himself stand up straight, but all his willpower earned him was another strike to the solar plexus. 

“It’s funny you think I’m gonna play with you.” Those hands settled on his shoulders next. Gavin held out against them for all of two seconds before his knees buckled under the weight and deposited him on the same couch he’d sat on last time he graced this murder house with his presence. Dillon stood in front of him, nearly between his knees. “Something about you is familiar,” he admitted, snorting when Gavin averted his eyes. This fucker wasn’t an Enforcer like Nines; something told Gavin if he let himself fall under the sickly weight of this compulsion, he’d be lucky to break free of it at all. “Have we met before?” 

“I think I spoke to you on the phone. Really not the sort of person to donate blood, huh? It saves lives, you know.” Gavin snorted, wasting what little air he’d gotten back to do what he did best. He chanced a quick glance upwards to stare at the fucker’s collar bones. If he moved a certain way, he could just see the edge of his siremark sitting an inch or so away from one. Gavin threw on a smile. “What am I even saying? You’re much more into taking it than giving it, right?”

A laugh, wry and sharp, sounded above his field of vision. Gavin turned his face towards the fancy rug, then closed his eyes entirely when Dillon dropped into a squat near his knee. Gavin threw his hands towards his head, hands curled into fists— and Dillon grabbed him by the wrists and tucked them both neatly into one of his freakishly strong hands. Gavin thrashed hard, bringing up a knee to clip Dillon’s chin. 

Somehow Dillon caught that too. He laughed. “That was you? Should’ve figured. You’ve got a good valley girl kinda accent when you wanna use it.” Gavin flinched when the hand on his knee forced his leg back to the ground. Dillon squeezed tight; he could probably crack the bone if he really put his back into it. “But maybe you should’ve kept it to the phone. You picked the wrong call to respond to, Officer.”

A pause. “Unless…” Dillon gave another squeeze, harder this time, the bones in his wrists creaking worryingly. “You’ve been sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong?”

“No clue what you’re talking about, Count Chocula. I’m just here for a house call.” The hand left his knee. It grabbed his jaw instead, Dillon pressing forward to pin down his feet with his own knees. Gavin closed his eyes as tight as he could. “Actually, I was hoping Grandma would be around. Thought maybe I’d at least get some cookies and milk, maybe see some—” He grunted roughly, shuddering when that hand settled on his temple to forcibly lift his eyelid. “—see some fucking… baby pictures—” 

Oh, god. There it was. That pressure behind the eyes. Gavin railed against the hand on his face, bucking his entire body in hopes of freeing some part of himself that could do some fucking damage. Dillon was strong, stronger than strong. He freed foot, but a knee to the chest did nothing. Gavin kicked out again and clocked the coffee table, sending its contents tumbling to the ground. The couch screeched across the floor. Dillon was immovable, relentless.

“You think you can fight me?” the vampire snarled. “I’ve held down dozens, pig. You aren’t stronger than me.” The point of his thumb dug into the flesh beneath Gavin’s eye in clear warning: yield or lose the eye.   

The choice was obvious. Gavin opened them.

It only took one look for the pressure to grow and take over everything. Every bit of unease, every iota of self-preservation hammering in his chest like a bird hell bent on dashing itself to death against the bars of his rib cage. Gavin went stiff, then loose. There was nothing to fight. Nothing to fear. Gavin eased into the cushions of the couch with a sigh, his head tipping to the side; it was too heavy to hold up any longer. 

“That’s better,” the vampire said, pulling away and letting him go. Gavin struggled to look at him. His eyes flitted to and fro, sliding from one end of the room to the other, seeing but not really understanding. Dillon began to pace. A clock somewhere out of sight ticked loudly. Every time Gavin felt the urge to… to do  _ something,  _ Dillon would look his way. Their eyes would meet. The urge would fade.

After a moment of nothing, the silence gave way to words. “Tell me the truth,” Dillon ordered. He made sure to meet Gavin’s eyes. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve been investigating you,” Gavin spewed without warning, without hesitation. His stomach ached from anxious fear. This was nothing like Nines’s compulsion. It was stronger, the voice doing almost as much as the eye contact now that Dillon had him hooked. 

“For how long?”

Gavin grimaced. “Months.”

Dillon frowned. “And you know everything.”

Gavin nodded. 

Balking, Dillon sank his teeth into his bottom lip. “How about the rest of the police?” he pressed, dosing him with another debilitating wave of compulsion. Maybe it was linked to his mood, his will. The angrier he got, the more sick Gavin felt. “Do they know too?”

“N-No,” Gavin choked, stifled to the point of breathlessness. “J-Just me.”  _ And Nines, _ he added, but Nines wasn’t police. 

“Huh.” A pause. “You’ve put me in a weird position, Officer,” the vampire said, pausing in front of Gavin. “A really weird one. You’ve been sticking your nose into places it doesn’t belong. Am I supposed to cut it off then? Is that what you want from me?”

Gavin’s lips tingled. A pressure grew in his head. He was being urged to answer. He cracked his lips and struggled to lift his head. “I want…” God, speaking was hard. He wished Nines was here; things were always so much easier with his cool hand on his cheek and those blue eyes staring into his own. Gavin settled on closing them instead. “I want you to… fuck off.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Dillon grabbed him by the hair again, yanking hard enough to make Gavin think twice about closing his eyes. “You listen to me, you fucking pig. You try anything, and I mean  _ anything,  _ and I’ll slit your throat so fast you won’t even have a chance to blink—”

The front door opened. Gavin sucked in a breath of air. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t call for help. The door closed and the sound of keys hitting a table echoed through the quiet of the house. Dillon cocked his head to the side and grinned. 

“That you, Devon?” 

“Who else would it be?” a familiar voice answered. Gavin’s stomach sank like a rock. Fuck. 

“Oh, I dunno.” Dillon eyed Gavin shrewdly. “Maybe someone out to get us.”

The footsteps grew louder. “What are are you even…” Devon turned the corner and froze a step into the room. He gaped at Gavin. He looked at his brother. “Dillon.” His voice was artic cold. “What the fuck did you do?”

On some level, this might have been funny if it wasn’t happening to Gavin. Devon’s face was objectively hilarious, after all. Big eyes all wide, mouth agape, his scrawny, strung-out features only adding to the exaggerated way he took in the scene on his couch. Gavin tried for a chuckle but barely managed a gasp. Really, if this wasn’t happening to him, it’d be hilarious. 

But it was happening to him, and laughing was probably the worst thing he could be doing right now.

Dillon let go of his hair and stood up to his full height. He crossed his arms. “I didn’t do anything,” he said, jerking his head in Gavin’s direction.  _ “This  _ chucklefuck decided to knock on our door again.”

Devon said nothing. He just stared. First at Gavin, then at Dillon. He didn’t need to speak. His eyes were screaming loud enough for even the ghosts in the attic to hear. 

“Oh, come on,” Dillon groaned, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like I went out and picked him up off the street. You’re the one who’s always saying we gotta be proactive. He came back here on his own; was I just supposed to let him leave again?”

“He’s a  _ cop,  _ Dillon!” Devon said, grabbing for his own hair. He looked at Gavin the way someone would look at a fucking monster. Which was hilarious, Gavin had to think, given what his brother was. “You shouldn’t have even let him come through the door. Why the fuck did you let him in here?”

“Because he knows?” came the nonplussed answer. Dillon began to tap his foot. “Why are you so pissy? Did you want me to let him ruin everything instead? You said we had to keep a low profile. I’m making sure we do that.”

Devon dropped his hands. “In what  _ universe  _ is kidnapping a fucking cop keeping a low profile?” He held up a hand and used the other to cover his face. “Wait, don’t. Don’t fucking answer that. It’s too late for it to matter now.” He looked through the cracks in his fingers, assessing Gavin, the keys, wallet, badge, gun, and phone on the crooked coffee table and floor not even a foot away. “Shouldn’t we at least tie him up or something? What if he tries to run?”

Dillon laughed. “Dude, I’ve got him so drugged up on my vampire shit that he’s gonna be lucky to stay upright let alone cause us more problems.” As if to prove it, he moved over to Gavin and knotted his fingers in his hair, jerking his head up so they were forced to meet eyes. Gavin fought the cloudy, dizzying pressure for as long as he could. “Tell my brother you don’t want to get up,” the vampire ordered. 

“I don’t want to get up,” Gavin parroted. It was impossible to refuse. He couldn’t. 

Devon still groaned into his hands. “And what about when you aren’t around to do that?” he demanded, dragging his hands down his face to glare. “We can’t just—” His voice dropped into a harsh whisper. “We can’t just hold a cop hostage forever!”  

Dillon pulled away from Gavin, dropping his head. Gavin slumped and stared at the floor. “I’m not saying we hold him hostage,” he snapped back, cutting at the air with his gesticulating hands. 

Devon threw his hands into the air. “Then what then? Killing him will just bring down heat if the body is found, and people  _ notice  _ when cops go missing.” He shot a glare at Gavin that was world’s different from how he’d been the night they first met. Gone was the almost overly earnest frankness, the bobbing head and sycophantic air. He looked at Gavin as if he were a wasp in the house; something to be gotten rid of with extreme prejudice, and fast. “He’s not one of those fucking hookers that no one thought twice about; what’s your plan, Dillon?” 

“Let him go?” Gavin slurred, fighting through the fog. Something on the floor glinted at him. He let his head swivel on his neck. Oh. It was his phone. It’d fallen half under the table in the scuffle, its screen cracked like spiderweb. “Y’ should just let me go.” It was flashing now, vibrating in the thick carpet. Nines’s name flashed across the display. 

His vision turned white with pain. A sharp crack rent the air. Gavin’s head twisted to the side from the force of the blow, a trickle of blood rolling down his chin from his split lip. He groaned in pain and lifted his head in time to see Dillon lick a line of blood from the side of his hand. His eyes flickered black. His lips curled into a fey, ruthless grin. 

“My plan is that he tastes better than the others did,” Dillon said, looking towards his brother. “This is an opportunity, Devon! I swear it is.”

Devon crossed his arms and glared, first at Gavin and then at his brother. “Oh, really? How do you figure that?” If his words dripped any more acid, they’d be liable to burn holes in the floor. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dillon folded his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as he probably contemplated his own genius or something. “You can’t keep down that gutter blood we kept trying; I barely can either. Obviously we’re  _ higher  _ vampires,” he expounded, leaning forward onto the balls of his toes to look his brother in the eye. “Like, high tier, you know? We need better blood. He’s got it!”

Oh, fuck this noise. Gavin swallowed hard and tried not to flinch when Devon gave him another once over. It didn’t last long, thankfully. A bead of sweat rolled down Gavin’s cheek. He needed to end this fast before he ended up with a set of teeth in his throat that he really, really didn’t want there. The phone under the coffee table turned black. A second later it lit back up, Nines calling again. 

Dillon closed the distance between himself and his brother. He put his hands on Devon’s shoulders. “This could be what we’ve been missing,” he said, giving Devon a gentle shake. Gavin watched for a second and then focused on the phone. It wasn’t that far away. He could probably reach it if he moved slowly, kicked out his foot…

“Dude, it’s a  _ cop,”  _ Devon tried, biting at his bottom lip. “He’s not like those hookers. Someone’s gonna notice.”

_ Yeah,  _ Gavin griped internally,  _ like my super strong and pissed off vampire boyfriend.  _ Wait. Were they dating now? God, that was probably something to talk about once he got out of this situation. It’d be the dumbest fucking thing to die before he put a ring on it. Gavin grimaced at the thought and tried to make the movements of his leg look natural. He prodded at the screen with the toe of his shoe. He held his breath. Almost… there…

“We haven’t been caught yet! This is just a dumb beat cop anyway,” Dillon argued. “He’s not a detective. He’s probably not even on the case! And we don’t  _ have  _ to kill him. At least, not right away. It’d bring down heat to start taking better targets. I say, why don’t we just use this one? We’ve got that shit upstairs from her dialysis shit. We keep him, milk him for awhile and then…” 

He trailed off, nodding emphatically at his brother. “They won’t look for him forever. We can off him and drop him once the heat’s gone down. Cops die all the time, bro. It’s Detroit. It’ll be fine.”

That was just a great take on his occupation of choice. Really comforting, unlike the damn phone beneath his foot that refused to accept the damn call. He prodded at the screen, trying every angle before finally realizing what was wrong. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning in frustration. It’d add to the risk of getting caught to retract his leg back towards the couch, but there really wasn’t any other option.

He froze when Devon looked his way again. Averting his eyes, Gavin tried to look helpless. The phone went black. Devon let out a distressed sort of groan and looked at his brother. Gavin toed off his shoe. Damn touch screens, always making shit more difficult than it needed to be. He kept his eyes on the arguing twins and padded his foot around blindly, searching for the slim screen of his phone along the thick rug carpeting the floor. Nines’s name was flashing again. Thank god he was the type to spam. Now, all he had to do was—

The vibration stopped. Gavin flicked his eyes down. The twins continued to bicker as the screen flickered to life. 

0:00. 0:01. 0:02. 0:03. 

Nines was so going to kill him for this. 

“If you’re going to do something,” Gavin cut in, speaking loud enough hopefully to be heard through the tiny speakers, “then just fucking do it already. I know you’re twins and all but do you both have to be on board before someone  _ does something?”  _

There. At least Nines would know that both of them were here in the house.

The arguing stopped. All eyes turned to him, which wasn’t exactly what Gavin wanted since it came with another dose of pressure and fog, knocking him over. He splayed out along the length of the couch, blood tacky and lip stinging as his face hit the cushion Gavin let out a shaky, shuddery groan. He refused to look in the direction of the phone. If Nines wasn’t on his way by now, he was fucked, plain and simple. 

“Wow,” Devon murmured. “He really did go down easy.”

“I told you I have it under control. Honestly, I’m offended you’d doubt my skills. You think I haven’t been practicing every time I go out to hunt?” Dillon looked at his brother. He put his hands on his hips like a bloodthirsty soccer-mom. “If there’s any time to trust me, it’s now. What’s it gonna be? You in or what?”

Devon chewed on his bottom lip. Gavin’s heart thudded in his chest. “You really think better blood is gonna help me change?” came the reply, hopeful and just a bit tense. Gavin’s focus sharpened at the words. Change? Did he… Did he really think he was still some sort of vampire too?

Dillon clapped his hands on his brother’s shoulders. He gave him a shake and a bright smile, showing off the glinting sharpness of his itty bitty baby fangs, and seriously, fuck Dillon for making it work. “I know it will,” he said, hooking Devon under his arm to loom over Gavin’s prone body together. “I drank from Maria and she was definitely high-end. This cop is the answer we’ve been looking for, I’m sure of it.”

_ Yeah, don’t count on that,  _ Gavin wanted to say. Tried, at least. Maybe his lips moved, and maybe they didn’t. It wouldn’t matter either way; they weren’t looking at him now. Not for that, at least. Not in any way that made a difference. 

Devon managed a smile. He shrugged his brother’s arm off and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s get him upstairs then. I’ve waited long enough for my damn fangs to come in.”

Dillon smacked Devon on the back. “There we go, that’s what I like to hear!” He was grinning when he looked down at Gavin. “You heard the man,” he said, kicking at the base of the couch. “Get up before I carry you there myself.”

“Would you really?” Gavin choked, taking advantage of the only ease in pressure so he could spit the words out and make his mood be known. He nearly gurgled on his spit in the next instant though— Dillon grabbed him by the collar and stared into his eyes so intensely that it was a wonder Gavin didn’t collapse then and there. 

Dillon narrowed his eyes. “Don’t make me have to,” he hissed. “You won’t like it at all.”

Well, that was probably the first thing they agreed on.  

In the end, they didn’t need to carry him; Gavin’s feet moved against his will, carrying him up the steps and after Devon with all the eagerness of a lamb going unaware to the slaughter. The fog inside his head was thicker than cotton, every thought weighed down until he barely felt the solid wooden steps beneath his feet. He swayed forward and back, hand held to the railing by Dillon behind him. Every time he stumbled, every time he started to sway too far forward or backwards, the hand on top of his own would tighten. He’d grip the railing and shudder as Dillon jerked his head around, forcing their eyes to meet. 

“Keep going,” Dillon’s voice ordered, so far from the silk and lace of Nines’s honeyed tones. An itching, skittering feeling danced beneath his skin. Gavin bobbed his head obediently. He kept going. 

The top of the stairs opened up to a large landing with two halls on either side that held a few closed doors. A thick rug met him at the top step, plush and old like the rest of the house. The hand on his shoulder shoved him to the right. Gavin kept moving, nose twitching and pricking at the sickly, fetid stink wafting out from one of the doors behind him. 

The really sad thing was that Gavin had been a cop long enough to know what a rotting body smelled like. Great. He’d just found grandma. That was one mystery solved. 

“Can you get the—” Devon began.

“—already on it,” Dillon murmured, gripping Gavin tight just to turn him around. They met eyes. “Follow my brother,” he ordered, eyes burning into Gavin’s brain. “Go into the room and sit by the window. Don’t try anything. Understand?”

Gavin’s mouth formed a “Yes,” before he could think to say _ fuck you. _ Dillon nodded and twisted him around once more. Devon was standing by the last door in the hall. Gavin’s feet moved towards him automatically. 

“Get inside,” Devon ordered, twisting open the door to let him go first. It opened up to an old, clearly forsaken bathroom complete with dingy, grimy tile and peeling pink wallpaper. The shower in the corner was covered in so much calcium build up that the glass screen might have been green for all that showed through the thick white haze. It stunk mildly of mildew and rust. “Go to the back corner and sit down.” 

There was a window in said corner as well as an old, rusted radiator built into the wall beneath it. Gavin really, really didn’t want to sit by it; he’d seen enough horror movies to know what happened around old, rusty radiators, but the pressure was still too strong to ignore for long, even with Dillon out of the room. Gavin’s feet dragged along the floor, skidding and kicking at stray junk that had probably been thrown inside for want of anywhere better to keep it. Random boxes and bits of metal and other unpleasantness that dug into Gavin’s ass and legs when he finally reached the wall and felt his body sit while the rest of him screamed to fight. 

“Ever heard of a Swiffer?” Gavin mumbled, lifting his head to look at Devon. The man was still by the door, probably waiting to make sure he actually obeyed before following him inside the small, cramped room. Gavin winced when a switch was flicked. Searing white light filled the room, complete with an incessant buzz that told him the fixtures were in about as good a condition as the bathroom appliances around him. 

“Shut up.” Gavin’s jaw clenched tight. Goddamnit. “Dillon?” Devon called out, hanging in the doorway as he looked back towards the hall. He was tense for a moment, then relaxed. He let go of the door frame and finally entered the room properly. He paused in front of Gavin. A moment later, Dillon entered the room. 

“Took a minute to find it,” his brother explained. “Somehow they ended up beneath the couch.”

“It’s fine,” Devon answered, crouching down in front of Gavin. He raised his hand up expectantly, eyes never leaving Gavin for an instant. “So long as we have them, I’m happy.”

“You worry too much.” Devon’s fingers curled in a  _ gimme  _ motion. Dillon snorted and held out his hand. A ring of silver glinted between his fingers, almost blinding in the shitty fluorescent lighting. Devon took it with a grin and turned back to face Gavin. He held the item at Gavin’s eye level. It was a pair of handcuffs, the ones Dillon had taken off him before. 

Shit. 

“Put your hands behind your back,” Devon ordered, and enough of Dillon’s compulsion remained to make Gavin respond without question. He looped his arms behind his back and sat still as Devon latched the cuffs around his wrist, the chain looped through the bars of the radiator. Devon’s eyes flicked upwards to meet Gavin’s just as the last hook clicked into place. “You really shouldn’t have come back here.”

“Should have thought about that before you killed all those people,” Gavin mumbled, tongue moving when the rest of him wouldn’t. 

“I don’t think any of us will be thinking about that much longer,” the man said, easing back to rest on his haunches. He cocked his head; God, how he managed to look creepier than his literal vampire brother was the biggest mystery of all. “You’ll be dead soon, and we won’t bother to remember any of you.”

An odd sound pierced the silence that followed. Gavin almost jumped; the twins absolutely did. Gavin furrowed his brow and looked up at the window above his head. From the sound of it, it was probably someone’s car alarm. 

“We should—” Devon began.

“—I’ll do it. You take care of this,” Dillon said, heading towards the door. His eyes hardened as he looked down the stairs. “Get it started and come downstairs when you’re done. We’ve got shit to do tonight.”

Devon waved his hand at his brother without looking away from Gavin. When Dillon disappeared from the door, he didn’t even bother to acknowledge it. “Just us now,” he singsonged, cocking his head to the side. He reached for Gavin’s sleeve. With the way his fingers probed, Gavin half thought he was trying to feel him up, but then he must have found a seam or something because a  _ rip  _ cut through the air a second later. Cold air tingled Gavin’s skin as his inner arm was exposed. “Best I entertain you properly, right? I’d hate to be a bad host.”

Gavin grinned through the pain. The fog was lifting but instead of clarity, it only brought fear. “What are you gonna do?” he asked, sneering at the human leaning over him. He didn’t like the way the man was eyeing his arm. “It’s not like you can bite me, Toothless. Gonna give me a hickey instead?”

Devon just smiled and reached for a dingy tin box. “Sure,” he answered. The lid opened. Gavin blanched when a syringe glinted back at him. “Something like that.”


	15. Chapter 15

Chief Inspector Rodalia’s nails clicked like a heartbeat against the desk, sharp, quick, and calculated. Nines watched them connect, blood red and shiny, and tried to decide whose heart it could be. Not his, certainly. If his could beat, he had a feeling it wouldn’t be quite so measured.

“I assume you’re here to report your progress on the case,” Rodalia murmured, breaking the silence that had grown between them in the ten minutes they’d sat staring at one another. A rapidfire staccato punctuated the words. That was more Nines’s speed. Her finger stilled their measured tattoo entirely. Sharp eyes cut Nines to the quick. “Report.”

Nines swallowed. It was quiet here today, most of the other Enforcers out and about performing regular duties instead of the paperwork that besieged them all at one point or another. Even vampires had to take weekends, and even crime had its highs and lows too. On some level Nines wished otherwise. He hated the way they stared and whispered when he came in, but for some reason being without the general background haze of productivity made the silence of Rodalia’s office all the more oppressive. 

_ You called this meeting,  _ he reminded himself. It was important. Nines inclined his head. He shifted minutely on the hard chair, wetting his lips. “I have updates,” he said, wincing when Rodalia didn’t react. He wasn’t sure what he expected; she was the definition of stoic after all. “I’ve discovered the culprit.” No reaction. 

“The one behind all the killings,” he amended, hoping to spark some sort of recognition.  

Rodalia merely raised a brow. Nines resisted the urge to cross his arms.  _ Just tell her what you came to tell her,  _ he told himself. It was just another routine progress report; he’d given them dozens of times before this. He could suffer through another, get his pat on the back, then head back to Gavin’s to surprise him once he got off work— 

“Ahem.” Nines blinked, lifting his eyes. Rodalia stared at him pointedly. “When you’re ready,” she said shrewdly, and immediately Nines felt his face prickle with embarrassment. 

“Yes, of course.” He cleared his throat and sat up straight. “Some details are still coming to light in regards to the underlying motive behind the killings, but I’ve determined that the killer is of the Luminary bloodline. I know where he lives, his hunting schedule as well. I’d advise we move on the killer as soon as a team can be assembled. He’s unstable.” Nines tensed his jaw. “Dangerous too.” 

At least that earned him a twitch of the lips. “What of the sire?” Nines pretended it was a smile. 

“I believe she’s already been taken care of,” he answered. “My source within the Triarii confirmed she had already been apprehended. Given the usual punishment for illegal fledgling creation, my guess is she’s already dead.”

“Alright.” Rodalia picked up a pen and made a note on a notepad. “I’m sure the Devereaux’s will be comforted that one of their brood wasn’t culled for anything less than the maintenance of our anti-fledgling laws.” 

Nines bobbed his head. “It was a textbook bypass of the laws.” Luminaries got away with a lot, but even the elite had to kowtow or risk upsetting the balance. Alumaria probably expected her name to protect her… Wait. “The Devereaux’s… I didn’t tell you who sired the killer.” Nines leaned forward in his seat, his hands clenching into tight fists in the fabric of his jeans. His expression fell. “Did you… Did you already know?”

Rodalia gave the barest hint of a shrug. Her pen rattled when it was deposited back into its holder. “I had suspicions,” she said. She folded her hands on the desk in front of her, the picture of untouched composure. “There were rumors, here and there. Gossip.”

Gossip. Of course. Rodalia was high ranking enough to rub elbows with the Luminaries, to attend their parties and hear their rumors. Of course she would have heard chatter about Alumaria’s transgressions. Nines struggled to keep his glare at bay. What had she told him before?  _ It’s best to keep an open mind,  _ she’d said. Irritation rose up, buzzing around his head like a fly that just wouldn’t go away. “And you didn’t think it prudent to tell me that when I began my investigation?” How many lives could have been spared if they’d known who the killer was sooner?

“We don’t deal in rumors, Mr. Arkay,” she replied evenly. “We leave that to the Nicciave. Now, finish your report. I haven’t got all night.”

“Right.” Nines looked towards the floor. The irritation remained though, and it set his teeth on edge. “The killer is a fledgling named Dillon Price, sired by Alumaria Devereaux a few months ago. There’s reason to believe that Dillon and his twin, Devon, have been living under the radar, hunting and draining prostitutes in some misguided effort to turn Devon as well. We don’t know everything yet, but I…” Nines trailed off, noting that Inspector Rodalia had raised her hand. He furrowed his brow. “Yes?”

She slowly lowered her hand, lips pursed. “We.”

Nines frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Before,” she said, tone clipped, cool. “You said  _ we don’t know everything.  _ I’d like to know who  _ we  _ is.”

“Oh.” Nines wilted. “Well.”

This. This was the part Nines had been dreading since he left Gavin’s apartment. It was likely that Rodalia already had an inkling that he hadn’t gotten this far alone. There were spies everywhere, willing informants who would turn on him the second they scented that someone else might be interested in learning things better left secret— for a price. Nines shifted in his seat and resisted the urge to fidget unduly. The ball would stay in his court if he told her first. Leverage only worked if you had something to leverage in the first place. 

Now or never. It had to be done. 

“To be honest,” Nines said, wondering how a being without a beating heart could still feel the sort of heart-stopping nervousness better left to the living, “I didn’t reach these conclusions on my own. I had help.”

Rodalia raised a brow. Her face was like granite. “Oh?” she said without inflection. The edge of a knife, liable to cut if the answer wasn’t to her liking. 

Nines knew it wouldn’t be to her liking. 

“The lack of information in our files made it hard for me to make progress in my investigation,” Nines said, shifting restlessly in his seat. It occurred to him that perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea to wear Gavin’s clothing here. Could Rodalia smell him on his skin? Oh, God… Could she know he’d drank from him too? Nines tensed up, holding himself tight around the middle. He had a feeling she wouldn’t overlook a transgression like that just because he caught her a killer. They culled a Devereaux for stepping out of line. The things they’d do to a low blood Enforcer would be worlds beyond Alumaria’s fate.

“And?”

Focus. “The usual consultants weren’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. Our photographs of the crime scenes were taken days after the human law enforcement teams had already done their work, sometimes weeks given the number of murders before I was brought in.” Being unable to work with the lead investigators who had the case before him too hadn’t helped things either. Nines cleared his throat a little. “You didn’t make my job easy given how the case was handled before my involvement.”

Rodalia didn’t move but to narrow her eyes. Nines swallowed. “I… encountered a like-minded individual while looking over a crime scene,” he said stiffly. “He had access to things I didn’t, new lines of thinking I couldn’t come up with on my own. He lacked context, which I had. I thought it would be smart to pool our resources.”

The sharp, percussive clack of Rodalia’s nails against the wooden desk was equal parts impatient and telling. Nines narrowly withheld a flinch. “Who,” she said. No inflection. Not a question. 

“A human police officer,” Nines said. “He works for the DPD.”

The clicking nails stopped. Rodalia looked at him hard. Nines resisted the urge to wilt beneath the weight of her disapproval. “How much does he know?” she asked next, nostrils flaring. 

“Everything.” There was no use sugarcoating it. Lying about how he managed to dupe a cop into giving him access to police resources without letting on who or what he was would just convolute things more than they already were. “He was looking into the killings independently of his superiors and hasn’t informed them of my involvement. No one else knows, and I made the decision based on the pros of our partnership outweighing the cons of divulging…” He gestured vaguely between them, leaving it at that. 

Rodalia said nothing. The room was silent but for the quiet sounds of the building settling around them. Nines did his best not to fidget under her scrutiny, which had become a lot more intense in the past minute. 

_ Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt! _

Nines jumped. Even Rodalia blinked. He looked down and covered his pocket with his hand, fumbling for the mute button through the fabric. “Sorry,” he muttered. He probably should have put it on silent instead of just vibrate. 

“You know our rules about involving outsiders,” she said, glancing towards his pocket in distaste before bothering to meet his eye again. Like most old ones, she had a clear aversion to technology, especially when it proved an inconvenience or bother to her own affairs. 

“I know,” Nines said.  _ Bzzt! Bzzt!  _ Christ. He grabbed his phone through the pocket again, finding the mute button faster this time. “But like I said, I wasn’t making much progress on my own. I weighed the situation carefully before acting on the impulse. I stand by my decision.”

“And I admire that,” Rodalia said, surprising them both a little. She had a sort of… pleased expression now, lips curled into a slight smile and her back meeting the rest of her chair in what could almost be called a casual slouch. She steepled her fingers and assessed him critically over them. “I just hope you’ve made plans to take care of loose ends once the case is closed.”

_ Bzzt! Bzzt!  _

Nines didn’t have time for this. “How do you mean?” he asked, not even bothering to look at his phone before silencing it. A few more vibrations rattled through his fingertips. Text messages. 

“You’re a smart guy, Nines,” she said simply. “I think you know how I mean.”

Understanding clicked into place with the finality of those nails hitting the wood. Nines’s eyes widened. “No, that’s—” Her eyes narrowed in an instant, reminding him who it was he was speaking to. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Ma’am, that’s not necessary. He isn't a threat. He won’t tell.”

Rodalia scoffed. “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I’d be in a much nicer office than this, and you’d be someone else’s problem.”  She braced her hands on the desk and leaned forward. The red of her nails stood out like blood against the dark wood. “Rules are rules, and they are rules for a reason. You—”  _ Bzzt! Bzzt!  _ Her eyes rolled, her lips curling back into a snarl. “Do you need to take that, Nines?” 

It probably wouldn’t shut up until he did. This was the worst time for something like this, but then again… “I’m… Yes. Sorry,” he muttered, giving her an apologetic look that he could tell right away didn’t mean much to her. Arguing with her with his nerves this frazzled wouldn’t help his case. He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, eyes going wide when the number of notifications took up the entirety of his lockscreen. An unfamiliar number flashed across the top. He thumbed over the accept button and brought the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hello?” a female voice answered, harried and breathless. “Who is this?”

Nines blinked. “That depends,” he said slowly, frowning at the floor. “Who are you?”

“It’s Tina? Tina Chen? Fuck, you probably have no clue who I even am. I’m Gavin’s friend?” 

_ Oh, _ Nines thought. The lesbian in love with her space heater. He immediately grimaced at his mental associations and resolved to berate Gavin for it later. “I know who you are,” he murmured, glancing at Rodalia and then looking at the floor. She wasn’t going to put up with this for long. “How did you get this number?”

“Gavin gave it to me. Listen, I think he’s doing something stupid,” she said, voice hushed as if she were trying not to be noticed. Nines frowned at the sound of activity, loud and distracting, threatened to overshadow her voice completely. Wherever she was calling from, it sounded busy. “He ran off a half hour into our shift and told me he had to do something, that if he didn’t call me in an hour I was supposed to call this number.”

Something cold settled in the pit of Nines’s stomach. “Is that… Did he say anything else?”

Tina made an affirmative noise. “He said something weird. Like, to tell you he didn’t stay in the car. He said that you’d know what that meant—”

The chair clattered to the floor from the force of Nines jolting to his feet. “How long did you wait?” he asked, blood gone cold. 

“What?”

“How long did you wait to call me?” he hissed. The casing of his phone creaked within his rapidly tightening grip. He looked frantically for a clock in the room, his gums itching when he saw the time. “The full hour? How long has he been gone?”

“Do you think I’m a fucking idiot? I gave him fifteen minutes before I called in the calvary.” She paused there. “At least, I’m praying to God that’s what you are.” 

Thank god someone here had sense. “Yeah, that’s what I am,” he muttered. “Keep calling his phone. I know where he is and I’m heading there now.”

“Wait, you know where he is? What the fuck is he doing?”

Nines let out a hiss of a sigh. “Being an idiot,” he said, ending the call in the next moment. He looked at Rodalia. She was staring at him, expression stony and eyes speaking louder than words could of how little she cared for this interruption. 

“Are you going somewhere?” she asked. Her voice told him in spades what the proper answer to that question should be. Would be, if he had any sense in him, any sense of self preservation or consideration for his career and clan. 

Nines’s mouth went dry. He needed to sit down. He needed to finish this meeting. They were talking about Gavin’s life here. 

Of course, Gavin might not have much life left if Nines left him to deal with the twins on his own. 

Shit. 

“I… I need to go—”

“Sit down, Nines.” 

Nines lifted his gaze from the floor where it’d been drifting. He looked at Chief Inspector Rodalia. She was steel threaded through, eagle-eyed and utterly serious. Nines’s knees started to bend. It took squeezing the phone in his hand to remind him why he couldn’t sit back down. 

“I need to go,” he repeated, firmer this time, his eyes struggling to meet hers. 

“To where? To help that human you’ve found?” Rodalia rolled her eyes and snorted. She folded her arms atop her desk. “No, you don’t need to go.”

Nines sucked in a breath of air, too sharp to satisfy, too cold to comfort. “He’s my friend.”  _ More than that. More than a friend.  _ No one else had tried the way Gavin had. God, he was so much more than the job. Nines could taste Gavin on his tongue when he swallowed. His lips burned. “I have to—”

An annoyed groan cut him off. “You are the last person I expected to have to give this talk to.” Rodalia rubbed at her eyes with her fingers, bringing it away to gesture emphatically. “He’s  _ human, _ Nines,” she pressed, leaning forward in her chair, the most animated he’d ever seen her in his time here. “Don’t act like he’s worth anything beyond the access he gave you with the case. The only thing he  _ is  _ is a means to an end. If you go to him, it’ll be to clean up the loose ends you’ve given yourself by seeking help in places you know better than to approach.” Her eyes met his, burning and unmoveable. “Do I make myself clear?”

Nines stared at her. He was breathing harder than he’d ever breathed before, rushed and panicked. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t  _ fair.  _ He owed Gavin more than this.  _ She  _ owed him more than this. Owed the both of them for the work they’d done, for the progress they’d made. Where would they be without Gavin’s insight? Where would they be if he hadn’t made the connections Nines was too close to see? 

“Nines,” Rodalia snapped after a minute too long of silence. “Do I make myself clear?”

He shook his head in disbelief. “No,” he said, the word bubbling on a laugh that was so out of place that it scared him a bit. “No, you don’t. Not at all.”

“Excuse me?” she hissed, narrowing her eyes. 

“You wouldn’t have a name without that human,” Nines snarled back at her, rising to the challenge in her tone, her posture. They were just beasts when it came down to it, fighting against their natures at every turn. Nines’s fangs itched in his gums, longing to rip free and fight her for the truth she refused to see. “You’d still be sitting here with your thumb up your ass, trading empty promises with the Luminaries as more and more people die.” He balled his hands up into fists. He’d break his phone if he wasn’t careful. The endless calls and texts had stopped a while ago, he reminded himself. Tina wouldn’t call back. Gavin probably couldn’t either. 

The urge to fight eased at that. Focus coalesced behind his eyes. 

He was… He was waiting for him. Gavin was waiting for him to help. 

Nines stomped towards the door. 

Rodalia stood up. He heard her stand up, heard the displacement of air and the shiver of her low, non-verbal growl. A shudder tore down Nines’s spine, instinct screaming at him to turn around, to not let her out of his sight. He listened enough to pause with his hand on the knob, head turned back to look over his shoulder. She hadn’t moved out from behind her desk. Her eyes burned as she stared him down, enough that the distance didn’t matter at all. 

“Remember what you are, Arkay,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “You’re a cog in the wheel. You haven’t pulled enough weight to have an opinion, let alone a say.”

Really. Twenty years he’d worked with this organization. Twenty years of shitty treatment, shitty coworkers, that shitty, filthy haven that he’d been so charitably allowed— Nines rose up to his full height and wrenched open the door, savoring the screech and any attention it drew. “With all due respect, Inspector?” he said, looking over his shoulder at the woman he knew without a doubt didn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty. “Fuck you.”

“Arkay! Get back here, Arkay!” 

Nines was a lot of things, but brave wasn’t one of them. The second the final word left his mouth, he was out the door and weaving between the desks. The few heads the desks boasted lifted to look at him. A few even looked curious; the infamous Internal Affairs lapdog running from the boss’s office with his tail between his legs? Nines probably would’ve been curious too. He ignored it as best he could and kept moving. Rodalia wouldn’t chase him. She wasn’t the type to exert herself like that for someone like him. She would send someone after him if she really cared, but Nines knew she wouldn’t. He’d come back on his own. He had no other options, no other group to depend on.

If people jeered, he didn’t hear them. If anyone tried to call out to him, he didn’t give it the time of day. Nines forced open the door and dialed blindly as he tore down the stairs. He swore loudly, drawing eyes and attention as he tore past random Enforcers on their way in or out. Shouts followed him, jeers too. Nines hung up when he got Gavin’s answering machine and tried again. 

“Why did you do something so stupid?” he hissed to the dial tone, clipping the door frame as he threw himself into the lobby and barreled towards the exit door. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did he bother leaving Gavin’s side? He should’ve stolen the man’s handcuffs and lashed him to the bed and kept him there, out of sight, unable to be the stupid fucking  _ idiot  _ he was— 

His internal screaming cut off the second he heard a  _ click.  _ Nines froze in the doorway. The cold winter air teased his nose, his cheeks. He breathed hard but no condensation followed. 

Fitting. Without Gavin here, all he felt was cold. 

“Gavin, I—” 

The words didn’t have a chance to get out. There was something making noise in his ear. Voices? Rattling, footsteps, the wheezing, choked sound of inhibited breath. 

“If you’re going to do something,” Gavin’s voice carried through, loud but pained, distant but there, “then just fucking do it already. I know you’re twins and all but do you both have to be on board before someone  _ does something?”  _

Nines tightened his grip on the phone. He flung open the door hard enough to shatter the glass against the opposite wall. Shit. Hell to pay, but that wasn’t his problem. Gavin was his fucking problem right now, and god, Gavin had made himself into one hell of a problem. 

A yelp of pain echoed in his ear. 

“Wow,” a strange voice murmured. “He really did go down easy.”

Nines stopped thinking; he broke out into a dead run. “You are so dead the second I save you,” he hissed, startling the few pedestrians milling on the street outside. If the twins didn’t kill him first, that was. 


	16. Chapter 16

The prick in his arm wasn’t a surprise, but that didn’t stop it from hurting with the rest of him. Devon’s fingers moved with clinical calm, removing the needle and threading the IV drip with a skill that spoke of long seated habit. If it wasn’t happening to him, Gavin might have been impressed; he’d had trained nurses treat his veins worse than this snot nosed college fuckhead. 

“You play day-nurse for Granny?” he grunted, watching the plastic tubing turn red as his blood began to leave his body. Dillon had mentioned dialysis before. This shit must have been their grandmother’s. At least he could trust it was semi-sterile if it didn’t just kill him through the obvious method at hand. 

Devon didn’t answer. He was busy setting up a receiving bag on some stand, hooking the tubing into the opening so not even a drop was left to dirty the floor more than it already was. In fact, he barely looked at Gavin now that the IV was in place. 

Well, fine. Don’t talk back. Gavin could work with that. He was nothing if not persistent. 

“So, what did her in?” He let his head settle against the radiator, testing with short, subtle motions to see just how stuck he was. “She was in her nineties, right? Old, wealthy by the looks of this place. You kill her?” he guessed, eyeing the medical supplies on hand. Home dialysis wasn’t an easy process. She had to be taken care of three, four times a week. Daily if she had one of those new machines he’d heard Tina mention her grandfather had looked into. He looked up at Devon. There was no sign of an at-home nurse here. That left her lovely grandsons, one of whom had clear medical know-how if the skill in which he trussed up Gavin’s IV were anything to go off of. 

Gavin wet his lips. “Did you let her die?”

Devon’s shoulders fell. So, he was right. “It wasn’t like that,” he muttered. “She didn’t…”

Gavin snorted at that. “What? Suffer? Her own grandkids left her to rot down the hall.” Devon looked up, a pained expression on his face. “What, didn’t think I’d notice?” He rolled his eyes and glared at the wall. “I found enough of your brother’s scraps to know what a dead body smells like. You aren’t fooling anyone.”

“Would you just shut up already?” the man snapped, white lipped and drawn. “She was ninety years old and with two shitty kidneys. She needed constant care.  _ Constant _ .”

Alright, that was something. Gavin cocked his head to the side. “You’re young. You probably didn’t like that. Did you live here with her then?”

“It’s close to the college,” Devon returned icily. 

“You in college?” Devon looked away. Gavin nodded. “I’m gonna guess not anymore. Where’d you get your CNA?” When Devon looked surprised, Gavin just shrugged. “You need training to put in an IV that well. You get certified in high school or something?”

“Stop it.”

Gavin raised a brow. “Stop what?”

Devon turned to glare. “Stop trying to act like you know me,” he said, baring his teeth a little. “You don’t know shit about me, and you aren’t going to. You’re fucking food. Act like it and shut the fuck up.”

Great. He’d watched enough interrogations and seen enough negotiators at work to know he’d just hit a wall. This wasn’t really the sort of thing he’d been trained to handle either. Gavin eyed Devon carefully and noted the cold sweat on his skin, the shaky, jumpy way he moved. “That’s fine,” he said, meeting Devon’s eyes. They were blown wide like a junkie, high on adrenaline and no sleep. “I think I know what happened anyway.”

A snort. “You do?”

“I do.” Gavin smiled. It didn’t feel like a very nice smile, but then again, this wasn’t a very nice situation. “You dreamed of being a doctor or a nurse in high school, got certified and went off to nursing school.” He eased himself against the radiator until he could comfortably rest his head on a metal pipe and watch Devon and the filling blood bag without turning his head. “But then Granny took a turn for the worse. Bet your folks volunteered you and your brother to babysit. Only thing was, Granny needed round-the-clock care, and class schedules aren’t that flexible.”

Devon flinched. Got ‘em.

“Poor Granny. How long did you play nurse before you got sick of it? Sure, free housing is nice, but you’re young. You’ve got dreams.” Gavin shot him a bitter, judgemental look. “So, you lied and said you’d take care of her, then lied when the inevitable happened. You probably realized they’d be able to tell she missed a treatment, so you just decided not to tell anyone when she finally croaked. God, you’re a real piece of work. Guess that’s why you had no problem lying about everything else. You’d already gotten so much practice in, so why not go in whole hog?”

“Shut up.” Devon was sweating bullets now. “Shut up.”

“I mean, who am I to judge you?” Gavin went on, shrugging like the asshole he was. “I’m just the cop who got roped into all of this trying to save the lives of everyone you felt like slaughtering, just like Granny.” He wished he had a camera to record all of this. Of course, no one would even believe the vampire shit in it, but at least then he’d have proof of how good he was at wheedling information out of perps. It could make for good resume material. “Should’ve known I’d just end up another stain on your conscience. Just the victim of two pathological liars.”

Devon turned towards him fully now, looking on the verge of snapping. “I said shut up.”

Gavin didn’t. He snapped back, “Did you even get an invitation to Devereaux’s party, or was that just another lie to make you both feel like this was some sort of cosmic destiny you were meant to fill?”

“I was telling the truth!” he said, giving Gavin an odd, almost desperate sort of look. “The address was right on the invitation, but the name was entirely wrong. I don’t know who it was meant for.” He crossed his arms and looked towards the door. “Dillon found it on the table. He’d always been the one to do the crazy things, to just… do shit. He didn’t care if he got caught or called out for it.”

“He crashed the party,” Gavin guessed, and Devon answered with a sharp, clipped shrug. “Must’ve been hard to resist. Fancy party like that, all the perks.”

“I told him not to go.” A pause. Devon kept his eyes on the floor. “He didn’t come home for two days. I got a bad feeling. Twin shit or whatever, I don’t know. I woke up the next morning thinking…  _ knowing _ he was dead.”

“Well, you weren’t far off the mark,” Gavin mused, shifting lower to see if he could feel anything along the floor that might be thin and stiff enough to pick the handcuffs with. “Lemme guess: he called first and told you he was fine, that he’d just had something amazing happen to him.”

Devon looked up at him then, sharply. Gavin froze. “To us,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “He said something amazing had happened to  _ us.”  _

It was getting harder and harder to resist the urge to roll his eyes. And people said he was dense. Jesus. “And you bought that?” Gavin posed, raising a brow. 

“It’s what she told him,” Devon countered, quick as a whip. “The rich lady, Maria. He kept seeing her, kept going back every night. She told him I’d be next, it’d just take time.”

God, this poor bastard. “I hate to be the one to tell you this,” Gavin said, not hating it at all, “but I think she meant she’d change you herself.” If she hadn’t gotten her ass culled. Hell, maybe that was how she got herself caught; maybe one illegal fledgling was easy enough to hide if she kept him close to her side and swore off other distractions, but two? Someone must have ratted her out. “But I think I know where this is going. Your brother told you it was already taken care of, right? That because the two of you are  _ such  _ good twins, the change was already in motion.”

“Don’t act like I’m a fucking child,” Devon cut in, tossing down his arms to ball up his hands into fists at his side. “What the fuck do you even know about it? He told me it would work,” he pressed, spittle flecking his lips, his eyes wide and wild. “The change takes time sometimes. He was first and I’ll be next, and then—”

“And then what?” Gavin interrupted. “You’ll kill some more? Add to the body count your brother’s already got going for him? In what world is that okay? Even if it was true—”

“Which it is,” snarled Devon, bearing down on him like a half-crazed tiger gearing up to strike. “It is true, because I’m a fucking vampire too.”

Gavin laughed so hard that his vision clouded around the edges with black. He rocked his head back and shook it, grinning wide enough to hurt. “Jesus fucking Christ, are you even hearing yourself? We’ve all seen the fucking movies, Sherlock. Did you get bit? Did you stumble along after brother dearest to Devereaux’s party?” His eyes flicked up just in time to catch Devon averting his gaze. “Yeah,” he snorted, “I didn’t fucking think so.”

Devon clenched his hands until his knuckles turned white. He inhaled hard, exhaling harder. The tile squeaked as he turned on his heel, stomping over to the makeshift rack holding the blood bag. He cupped it in his hand and hid his face as he pretended to examine it. When he didn’t lift his head, Gavin gave another snort. The fucker was listening to him. Listening, and doubting. 

The room fell silent. Gavin looked up at the bag—what little he could see of it with this fucker in the way—and winced when he saw how it was nearly a third full. What had he told Nines before? Five liters in a human body. One of those bags held one… probably. It didn’t look as big as Nines’s delivery had. His heart sped up a little. He squeezed his hands a few times. His fingertips were beginning to go cold. 

It only took two liters to kill a person, and he didn’t have to look far to see another empty bag lying in wait on the floor near the needle tin. 

If there was a time to get out of this, it’d be now. 

“You know I’m right,” he said, noting how Devon twitched at the sound of his voice. “You’re a smart kid. There’s no way your idiot of a brother got this far calling the shots. You’ve been the one keeping his ass out of the fire. You  _ know  _ you aren’t turned. You know this isn’t fucking right.”

Silence. Then, “Do you have siblings, officer?”

Gavin blinked. “What?”

Devon was as stiff as a statue, fingers still posed on the bag. “Do you have siblings? Brothers? Sisters?”

Frowning, Gavin tried to blink away his growing apprehension. “Yeah, why?”

“Are you close?”

“No. What the fuck are you getting at?”

Devon let out a harsh sigh and dug his fingers into the base of the bag. The blood inside sloshed upwards, painting the foggy, translucent plastic a dark, vivid red. “I’m saying you wouldn’t fucking understand,” he bit, looking at Gavin just enough to let him see the burning fury kindling in his eyes. “He’s my  _ twin.  _ He’s all I have. He’s all I know, and the only one on this fucking shitstain of an earth I can trust.”

It was a good thing Nines wasn’t here to hear this. Gavin swallowed and refused to let it get to him. He was bleeding out as this asshole threw his pity-party. The time to empathize was over. It was survival time now, plain and simple. 

“You think you can trust him? You really think he tells you everything? He killed a cop, and I don’t mean me,” Gavin replied, wrestling with every ounce of willpower he had left to make himself do  _ something  _ other than sit here like a sack of fucking potatoes. Devon looked up at that, eyes wide. “Yeah? Bet he didn’t tell you that, did he? Your brother is a fucking moron. He’s lied to you about his eating habits; what’s to say he hasn’t lied to you about everything else too? You’re too scared to be human by yourself, but did you ever stop to think maybe he’s too scared to be a vampire on his own either? That he’s dragging you into this shit just to make sure you don’t turn tail and abandon him? That he’s  _ using you?” _

Devon recoiled. “He wouldn’t do something like— Stop fucking talking! Why are you still talking?” he snarled back, dropping his gaze to go back to pretending to fuck with the bag. “You’re going to be my ticket out of this shithole. I don’t give a fuck about anything you have to say, and you aren’t going to change that.”

Gavin laughed, loud and as brayingly as he could manage. “My  _ god, _ you are so fucking stupid.” He looked towards the ceiling as if sharing some kind of private cosmic joke with the higher being watching this shitshow unfold. “How can you not see he’s fucking lying to you? In what world does it make sense that he gets bit and you turn too?”

“Because it has to!” Devon snapped, whipping his head up so quickly that Gavin heard the air whistle as it was displaced. His eyes were wild, his cheeks flushed high with an almost sickly pink tinge. He tossed aside the blood bag, ignoring how it swung dangerously on the rickety old rack, and moved to loom over Gavin. “It fucking has to,” he repeated, quieter but no less deranged. “There’s no other option.”

“There are plenty of options, dipshit.” Devon’s nose flared at his tone, but Gavin was past caring. “You ever heard of college? Dating? You can’t tell me you actually  _ want  _ to go the rest of eternity sucking blood and killing hookers.”

Devon crossed his arms. He probably thought it made him look tough, intimidating, but given he had the body type of a half-dead scarecrow, he fell short of the mark. “We said already what we were going to do.” He grinned, adding to his emaciated, manic appearance. “We’re done with the gutter blood,  _ officer.  _ We’re moving on to the good stuff.”

“Oh, how could I forget?” Gavin drawled, bringing his knee closer to his chest. Devon was pretty close now, and with his arms crossed like that, his reaction time would be cut in half. “The two of you are  _ higher vampires,”  _ he said, dragging out the words like they actually meant something at all. 

“We are,” Devon agreed, looking towards the blood bag. “And you’re going to be what gets us there.”

With his attention caught, Gavin acted. He bared his teeth and threw out his leg. “Oh, yeah?” Gavin shouted, his heel connecting with Devon’s mouth in a sickeningly satisfying blow. God, the grisly  _ crunch  _ was music to his fucking ears. The man reeled back, blood and spit arcing from the force of the impact. Gavin barked out a wild laugh as two white teeth clinked against the floor. “How you gonna bite me now, Count Fuck-You-La?!” 

Devon looked at him in horror, cupping his bleeding mouth with both hands. 

Gavin savored it. God, he wished Tina had been there to see it. How much better would it have been if he’d had steel toe boots? Fuck, he should get a pair. Just in case this ever happened again, he wanted to make sure he savored it the next time he got the chance to knock a fuckhead’s teeth out. 

Of course, that’d all be dependent on him making it out of this hellhole alive. Gavin fucking basked in that shocked, horrified look of Devon’s while he still could, which managed to be about a minute before the sound of footsteps sucked away all of Gavin’s mirth in one fell swoop. Devon turned just as Dillon stuck his head into the room. His nostrils flared— he probably smelled the blood before he quite noticed what state Gavin had reduced his brother to. 

“What the  _ fuck  _ happened?!” he exclaimed, rushing into the room to grab his brother by the shoulders. Devon had his hands over his mouth, hiding the worst of the wound but not containing the steady gush of blood escaping through his fingers. “I’m gone for fifteen minutes and you let this happen?”

Devon looked up at that, wide eyed and angry. “I didn’t,” he slurred, the protest sounding like  _ uh d’n!  _ He shook his head and thrashed around, refusing the words with his entire body. “What was outside?” he demanded. “Where were you? You said he couldn’t hurt me!”

“Calm down,” Dillon muttered, tearing his brother’s hands away from his mouth. “Some idiot set off a car alarm.” He hissed at the flood of blood that was quickly staining the bulk of Devon’s shirt. A quick look showed him the missing teeth a few feet away. “Jesus, that asshole got you good. It’s alright, though. You just need blood, alright? Once you drink some they’ll grow back.”

“Jesus Christ, are you serious?” Gavin groaned. In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the best moment for an outburst. All eyes turned towards him, and Gavin realized in an instant that he’d just opened himself up to more pain. 

“More blood?” Devon repeated, the words coming out closer to  _ muh luthd  _ than anything concrete. He eyed Gavin like a particularly obnoxious fly he couldn’t wait to swat. It really was astonishing how deep their well of bullshit lay to make Devon get over having his face ruined just because his brother was talking out of his ass again. “What about you? You gotta eat too.”

“You’ve got two bags,” Dillon reasoned. “Put one in his other arm and it’ll be over twice as fast and with twice the results.”

Oh, fuck. He reared back and tried to put distance between himself and the fucking maniacs in front of him, but of course, the radiator had other plans. “Don’t you even think about it,” he hissed at Devon. “Kill another cop and there isn’t going to be any rock for you to hide under—”

His threat was drowned out by an enormous clatter from below. A second later, Dillon’s hand struck his head, hitting him hard enough that Gavin wasn’t sure if he imagined the sound or if it was just a preemptive taste of how loudly his ears were ringing now. Either way, he listed to the side as both brothers locked up and looked at one another. 

It only took a second or two for Gavin to realize the sound wasn’t a figment of his bruised imagination. It came again, louder this time. Like fists hammering away at a wooden door. 

Devon looked at his brother. “Thought it was just a car alarm?” 

“It  _ was  _ just a car alarm.” Dillon turned away and jogged towards the entryway, peering out of it as if he could see down the stairs from here. Gavin couldn’t see much through the pain, but it didn’t take much to see how the guy tensed up, how his shoulders rose up nearly to his ears as a hiss tore past his lips. “Stay up here,” he snarled, not turning around. “We’ve got company.”

“Company?” Devon slurred. The dumbass was still worrying at the gap in his teeth with his tongue, more blood oozing out to stain his shirt. 

“Just stay here!” his brother shouted, throwing himself from the room and down the stairs before either of them could do more than flinch away from the sound. 

Gavin recovered first; he had a pressing, nudging feeling he knew who it was kicking down the door. He sucked in a lungful of air. “ _ Nines!”  _ he shouted as loud as he could make his voice go. Devon jumped at the sound, nearly toppling over when his foot caught on the tin box holding the bloodletting supplies. “Nines, I’m up here—”

He cut himself off as something collided with his head. Pain bloomed along his cheek. “Shut the fuck up,” Devon spat, nearly drowning out the sound of the broken, bloody piece of tile shattering as it hit the floor. Gavin watched the shards fall, vision spotty. Devon stomped closer and grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head up. “Don’t fucking say another word or I’ll cut your tongue out and get the rest of your blood that way.”

Fuck. Gavin kept his mouth shut. Devon let out a harsh breath through his nose and threw his head to the side, jerking his neck painfully in the process. Gavin grunted. He sagged heavily against the radiator, yanking fruitlessly at his handcuffs. Devon kicked aside the tin needle box and moved over to the filthy mirror. The noise from downstairs was growing louder. The blood bag above his head, fuller. 

There was one last thing he could do, and it was looking like it was about time to start considering it. Gavin winced preemptively. His head collided with the radiator and produced a dull  _ thunk. _ This was going to suck so much. 

Gavin gripped his left thumb in his right hand. He nosed at his collar, fussing with it until he could get a piece of fabric between his teeth. Dislocating a thumb wasn’t something they taught at the Academy, but Gavin had watched enough movies and done enough late-night, bored-out-of-his-mind research to know the general mechanics of it. There were easier, less painful ways to get out of handcuffs, but without a convenient paperclip or bobby pin, beggars really couldn’t be choosers. 

Timing it took a minute of thought, a minute Gavin pretended was more based on the fear of being caught than the anxiety of what he was about to do to himself. The noise downstairs was loud, but it could be louder. Devon seemed caught between the urge to stare at his face and duck his head out the door. Gavin willed him to go for the latter.  _ Just do it, fuckhead,  _ he thought, drilling his words into the back of Devon’s head.  _ Just go see. Go see what all the fuss is about—  _

“Jesus, what is that?” Devon mumbled, the words just gibberish through his ruined mouth. He moved towards the door and stuck his head through the entryway.

Now.

Gavin squeezed his thumb and yanked as hard as he could, and he was rewarded with a sickening  _ pop  _ that told him he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. The pain was worse than he’d anticipated, but with the rest of him already hurting, it was easy enough to ignore. Gavin bared his teeth, suddenly grateful the fucking asswipe wasn’t looking at him now. He slipped his hand through the cuff, stifling a groan in his shirt as his joint scraped along the metal. Forget being bitten. He’d been bitten before—sexy bedroom bites totally counted—and he was pretty damn sure this hurt worse than exsanguination ever could. 

_ Come on,  _ he thought, gritting his teeth.  _ Almost there, almost there—  _ There. The cuff slipped off his fingertips and he caught it, closing his fingers around it before it could fall and rattle against the radiator. Gavin bit down on his lip and carefully eased the cuff through the bars. He made sure not to move his shoulders too much. Keeping up the illusion was integral to this working. 

He waited until it was squared away to lift his head. Devon had wandered away from the door to go back to the mirror. That left him two feet away, dabbing and prodding at his newfound toothlessness with his fingers and a wadded up bunch of toilet paper he’d salvaged from somewhere nearby. Gavin rolled his eyes. What a fucking tool. The angle favored him though, so by all means, he hoped he kept it up. Gavin folded his fingers around the cuff until it was wrapped around his hand. They weren’t brass knuckles by any stretch of the imagination, but he was pretty sure they’d work well enough for what he had in mind. 

The pain was getting worse. In his head, in his hand, in his arm… Gavin had been through some pretty rough shit in his life. Bar fights and drills, rough nights on patrol with unruly perps who didn’t want to come quietly. This, though? This was the sort of pain he’d never felt before. The fear was making it worse and he wasn’t sure how to deal with that, to make it more manageable the way he’d done when he’d gotten his face cut open with a broken beer bottle back in college. He squeezed his hand around the warm metal of the cuffs. He eyed his target. He tried to keep calm. 

A quick glance at the blood bag told him he needed to act. The bag was half full. If he let it get any fuller, he wouldn’t be able to walk soon. 

Gavin swallowed. He shifted his feet until he had his knees under him. There wasn’t much to say. Luck would either be on his side or it’d way bon voyage to him as it slipped past him, leaving him to bleed out like the idiot he was. Gavin closed his eyes and gave himself a moment—just one—to gather his nerves. There really wasn’t anything to argue, anything to reason out now. This would work. If it didn’t, then at least he’d know he tried.

When he opened his eyes, his heart was calm. His vision was steady. Gavin waited until Devon was fully consumed with his fruitless task and then lunged, throwing himself to his feet with his arm already swinging.

The handcuffs collided with Devon’s head with a meaty, gross  _ thunk. _ Devon cried out—but then he went down, falling onto his knees to clutch at his head. Gavin followed him— tried to, at least. He felt a tug on his arm that stopped him short. He looked up and saw what it was. The blood bag swayed dangerously from its shaking rack, the tubing pulled taut, and while Devon was down, Gavin gritted his teeth and ripped the IV out of his arm before he lost another ounce of blood to the growing collection these assholes had already stolen from him. The pain was considerable, but it could wait until later. 

He turned to look down at Devon. Right now, he had bigger fish to fry.

“Get over here,” he snarled, grabbing Devon by the collar to drag him over to the radiator. Devon’s hands came up to smack and claw at his face. When one nail narrowly avoided taking out an eye, Gavin called it good enough and threw Devon against the waiting piece of metal. He went down hard, winded, and before he could manage to get his knees under him, Gavin grabbed him by the wrists, turned him to face the radiator, and had him handcuffed around it in less than a minute flat. 

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Devon wheezed, looking about as pitiful as a person could be while sporting a gaping hole in the teeth and a bruising face. “Take one step outside of this room and you’re dead!”

Gavin rolled his eyes and grabbed Devon by the back of the neck. “Sounds a lot better than putting up with you for the rest of the night.” He punctuated the statement by slamming Devon’s head into the radiator. The sound was disgusting, the sight somehow worse. Gavin winced and let go once Devon slumped over. The steady rise and fall of his shoulders told him he’d knocked him out. If the kid had been well rested and properly fed, it might’ve taken a lot more to bring him down. 

Oh, well. After the night he’d had so far, Gavin would take what he could get at this point. 

Gavin fell onto his ass and dragged his fingers through his hair. Sweat, cold and made sticky with blood, greeted him when he did. He let out a ragged sigh and tried to calm down. His chest was doing that funny thing where it grew too tight to breathe, and he knew if he had a panic attack here and now that he’d probably be able to kiss his continued existence goodbye. He inhaled slowly and exhaled even slower, grounding himself with the thought of Nines, of Tildie. The sounds downstairs were still going on, still loud, still angry. He couldn’t lose it just yet. 

All in all, he gave himself maybe three minutes to get himself under control. Three minutes of deep breathing and a pointed refusal to look at Devon’s pitiful form lashed to the radiator behind him. Gavin closed his eyes and braced his hands on his knees.  _ Time to get up, _ he told himself. Time to finish this once and for all. 

Getting up was easier said than done. Gavin lifted himself to his feet and promptly clutched his head in his hands. God, woozy. Woozy as shit, fuck. Blood loss really was no joke. He prayed to god and back that Nines really was in the house; he couldn’t imagine fighting a vampire off like this. He had a feeling he’d need a lot more than the element of surprise and the gumption to dislocate his own fingers to make that kind of miracle happen. 

He dragged his feet through the debris covering the bathroom floor, tripping a little over an uneven tile. He caught himself (barely) and pushed forward, stumbling towards the door. Once there, he let the wall carry him down the hall. The stink of decay greeted him again, thick and somehow worse than what he had just left behind him. 

_ Rest in peace, Granny,  _ he thought morbidly. Fuck, he’d have to make sure the family was notified, the body disposed of properly. Because he was getting out of this alive. He was. He’d die trying so long as it gave him the chance to make it happen. 

When he reached the top of the stairs, Gavin hate to admit that it looked… far. Really far. His knees were shaking under the effort of staying on his feet. Blood ran down his arm and dripped onto the floor. He wrapped his fingers around his bleeding inner arm and squeezed tight in hopes of keeping the rest inside where it belonged. He could hear a clatter and banging coming from downstairs. He lurched in that direction. 

“Nines?” he called out, gripping the railing as tightly as he could. His knees wouldn’t stop shaking, his palms sweaty and his face clammy. What was he going to find down there? With real, actual monsters invading his life, he was almost too scared to think about it. He stumbled down the last few steps and caught himself on the wall. There were no voices down here. Just growling, low and feral.

Gavin swallowed hard. “Nines?” he whispered, inching his way to the end of the hall. A few more steps and he’d be in the living room. “Are you out there?”

One more step. Gavin steeled himself. He sucked in a breath and turned the corner— 

Yeah, Nines was here. He was here and staring down Dillon, eyes black and mouth a mess of razors. The room was a mess of broken furniture and shattered glass, and Nines still wore the clothing he’d stolen from his closet just a few hours ago. God, it was hard to think about that, to overlay the memory of that soft, intimate sight with the hunched, blood-chilling creature in front of him. 

But it was him. That was Nines. 

That was his soon-to-be-if-not-already boyfriend, facing down a known killer. 


	17. Chapter 17

There was a lot to process as Gavin looked at the scene unfurling before him. A lot of carnage, a lot of anger, and a lot of vampiric bullshit seemed to have already trashed the room. Nines stood halfway between the front door entry hall and the couch, Dillon on the opposite side of the room, ankle-deep in broken tables, torn cushions, and the sparking remains of the old television. There didn’t seem to be any blood on either of them. Gavin was smart enough to know that was more do to a lack of time than a lack of trying on either of their parts.

The sound of his heavy breathing sliced through the palpable tension. Two sets of eyes turned towards him. Gavin didn’t know whether to smile or grimace. Maybe crying would serve him better. It’d illustrate his current position pretty well, all things considered.

“Gavin.” Nines’s voice hit him first, soft and so fucking full of relief and pleasure. Gavin turned towards it instinctively, like a flower chasing the touch of the sun.

“Nines,” he sighed—

“Gavin!” Same voice, different mood. Sharp, a warning. “Move!”

Dillon let out an ugly, bestial sound, and Nines threw himself between the two of them, snagging the other vampire from the air and throwing him to the ground. The foundations shook under the impact. Suddenly, the state of the room made perfect sense. Nines was panting, visibly struggling to keep the smaller vampire pinned.

Nines craned his neck around, eyes wide and jaw tight. “Get out of here!” he ordered. His voice was a full two octaves lower than it normally was, his jaw already making a worrying noise as he readied himself to lose control.

“I’m not leaving you here,” Gavin snarled back, looking for a weapon. There was a ton of broken furniture. He could make a stake, right? “Tell me how to help.”

“Oh, are you two together?” Dillon wheezed from beneath Nines’s weight. He had his head turned upwards, a stupid grin on his face. “I wondered why I smelled vamp on you. You fucking reek of it.”

“Shut up, fledgling,” Nines delivered, voice doing some… some terrifying resonating effect that sent ice flooding Gavin’s veins. Dillon just thrashed harder, swinging out his hands to claw Nines’s vulnerable sides.

“Do you know what I am?” Dillon screeched, pupils blown wide with the scent of blood filling the air.

Nines bared his teeth. “A murderer.”

“I’m a higher vampire!” Gavin tripped forward when those nails cut through Nines’s hoodie—fuck, he was still wearing the clothes he’d left his apartment in—and reached the skin below. “You’re just a fucking lowblood! You think you can take me on?”

Instead of letting Nines answer, Dillon rammed his head back and smashed Nines’s nose. Nines recoiled, hand automatically letting go to cover his face— “Nines!” Gavin shouted, but it was too late. With a kick and a shove against the floor, Dillon dragged himself out from beneath Nines. He leapt to his feet and kicked Nines in the chin, sending him flying backwards. Gavin dodged him, but only just. Nines hit the far wall with another wall-shaking impact, denting the drywall and sending flecks of dust cascading down on top of all of them like ashy snow.   

Dillon wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth and spat more of the same onto the floor. He gave Gavin a teasing sort of grin. “See?”

Gavin looked at Nines, heart in his throat. Nines… Thank fuck, Nines was fine. He was already shaking the blow off, lifting himself from the ground with a predator’s grace. Plaster dust covered his shoulders and stuck to his black hair. He moved past Gavin and stepped in front of him. He leaned forward, resting his weight on the balls of his feet.

“Get out of here,” Nines told him. “Get out and stay in the car.”

Gavin couldn’t help it; he laughed. A breathless, pained laugh. Dillon frowned, and if he could see the front of Nines, he was probably grimacing. “Babe, you know that’s just not me.” He took a step back. “Kick his ass. I’ll watch.”

“Oh, how fucking cute,” Dillon spat, coming closer. “You’re fucking, I take it.”

“Jealous?” Gavin said from around Nines’s shoulder.

Nines glanced over his shoulder. “Gavin, seriously,” he implored. Even covered in dust he looked great. “Get out of here.”

“Yeah, I already told you that’s not happ—” Gavin looked forward and promptly lost his train of thought.

There was barely time to react when Dillon threw himself at Nines, taking them both by surprise. Nines recovered first and snagged him from the air but the impact carried them both back, straight into Gavin. Limbs began to fly. Nines let out a blood-curdling screech as he fought to angle their scuffle away from the fragile human. It was no use though. The room wasn’t that big, and Gavin was forced to think fast else risk getting caught between them.

Gavin lunged to the right and narrowly avoided being clocked by a fist moving so fast that it left after images behind it. He hit the ground hard, rolling on his shoulder, and came to a stop by the ruined coffee table. He could see his coat nearby, the contents of his pockets from before, and… there! Right there. Fucking idiot didn’t bother to hide his gun. Gavin snatched it from the floor and cocked it, rolling into the kneeling firing stance he’d had hammered into him at the Academy during drill sessions. He braced the butt with one hand, curling his dominant hand around the stock with his finger on the trigger. He aimed between the flailing limbs, eyeing Dillon’s narrow form. Nines let out a pained snarl as the fucker dug his claws in once more. Gavin inhaled. He exhaled.

He squeezed the trigger four times and let himself smile when Dillon took his turn screaming out in pain.

Of course, it didn’t do much beyond that. Gavin’s eyes went wide as the vampire snarled and clawed at Nines, twisting in his grip until he had his hands wrapped around Nines’s leg. He jerked upwards, sending them both to the floor in a heap. Gavin fumbled the gun, the sweat on his hand wrecking his grip. Nines swore brutally as Dillon sank his teeth into his leg and tore a chunk from his thigh, spitting the flesh across the room.

“You’re no fucking match for me, scumblood!” Dillon screamed, acting like he knew what he was talking about. A kick to the jaw bought him enough time to scramble to his feet, and a blow to the solar plexus gave him the chance he needed to drag Nines into his arms. Gavin raised his gun but, unfortunately, Dillon wasn’t an idiot; he used Nines as a shield to take the one bullet he managed to get off, hitting him in the shoulder. Gavin balked and swore. Dillon laughed.

“Should’ve gone to the car,” he jeered nastily.

“Let him go,” Gavin hissed, taking a step forward. The gun shook in his hand. He knew it’d take more than a bullet to put Nines down, but something in his heart tore at the sight of the wound anyway. Sweat coated his trigger finger. Dillon laughed again, the fucker.

When he was sure Gavin wouldn’t shoot again, he threw Nines into a bookshelf, scattering bits of wood and knicknacks everywhere. Blood and meat clung from his diminutive fangs, his mouth stained red. Nines’s leg bled horribly; small fangs meant the wound was jagged, like getting cut by a dull knife. Nines looked pale. Really, really pale.

Clicking his tongue, Dillon looked at the mess he’d made. “Pathetic. Is this really all they sent after me? Can’t believe this is what Maria was so scared of.” He snorted, giving Gavin a mocking sneer. “A piece of scum and his fucktoy. I’m insulted.”

Dillon took one step towards Nines; Gavin raised the gun again. “Get the fuck away from him,” he shouted, willing his hands to stop shaking. His grip was so bad. He couldn’t hold the gun properly with his thumb the way it was. He fought through the pain away and raised it higher. “I fucking mean it.”

Nines, trooper that he was, lifted his head, his hand. His eyes were so wide. “Gavin, run—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Gavin snarled, overpowering Nines’s weak voice easily. He took a step closer and Dillon smiled, like this was all just one big fucking joke at someone else’s expense. “I’m placing you under arrest. I’d say you have the right to remain silent, but we both know by now you love hearing yourself talk too much do us all a favor and shut the hell up.”

“Gavin,” Nines snapped. He tried to cover his bite with his hands but the blood kept streaming through his fingers. “Don’t… Don’t look at him.”

Oh, fuck. That was right. Gavin snapped his eyes to the ground. Compulsion. If he went under now, they’d all be fucked. He heard a laugh and fought to keep from looking at Dillon’s face. He settled on the vampire’s feet, his chest. He took stock of the damage there. He weighed his chances, and he prayed.

Dillon bled sluggishly from his bullet wounds but didn’t seem to really feel them the way a human might. They were scattered along his chest and back, one nicking a leg but not enough to keep him from moving. “Y’know, I’d nearly forgotten about you before you came barreling in here. I thought you’d already been drained to a husk by now,” he murmured, and from the way his body shifting, Gavin could tell he was looking between Nines and him for a moment. Dillon’s body tightened, realizing what that probably meant. “Where is Devon?”

“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Gavin returned, glancing at Nines. How long did it take a vampire to heal? Nines’s leg was a mess, and he was sagging weakly against the shattered shelving. He was trying to stand, but his knee kept buckling. Fuck. “I’d worry about you.”

“Cute.” Dillon came closer, ignoring the way Nines growled. “Why don’t you put the gun down?”

Compulsion. Shit. Gavin’s arms locked up. He kept his head down, but there was something stronger about it, something making him struggle regardless. The blood in the air or maybe it was just because he was already so fucking weak from blood loss. Either way, Gavin began to sweat.

“Not a chance,” he spat. No way was he making shit worse for Nines than it already was.

“Wrong. But I suppose if you don’t want to put it down, how about you just aim it somewhere else?” Dillon suggested. He ducked down faster than Gavin could combat, their eyes meeting. “Point it at your head, Officer,” he ordered, the words laced with silk and poison. “Do it. Now.”

Cold, sucking pressure welled up behind Gavin’s eyes. His arms moved against his will. Somewhere in front of him Nines was screaming something. Gavin felt the cold kiss of the muzzle meet his temple. Dillon grinned a bloody, self-satisfied smile. Gavin saw his lips begin to move, to shape a word that would make the pressure stop completely. Gavin closed his eyes—

A heavy force crashed into him from the front, throwing him into the wall hard enough to slam the air from his lungs. His ears rang loudly as the gun discharged an inch from his head, and something warm and wet coursed down his ear. Dillon was practically on top of him, but on top of Dillon was Nines, eyes black and teeth so much sharper, so much… more. Gavin collapsed in a heap and cried out as the weight shifted, as Dillon swiped the air and clipped his cheek with his sharp nails. Nines let out another muted, muffled snarl, and then the weight was gone.

Wheezing for air left Gavin with little time to watch the fight. Nines had Dillon by the lapels, tearing him from the floor to throw him to the ground hard enough to rattle the foundations of the house. Bit by bit the sound rose up, and bit by bit Gavin shook off the mist hovering over his vision. He lifted a heavy hand to touch his face— then realized he was still holding his gun. Holding it with white-knuckled fingers tightly enough to hurt.

Nines pinned Dillon to the floor with his body. He took a fistful of Dillon’s hair in one hand, and with the other, held down a thrashing shoulder.

The mist eased more. Gavin took in a shuddering breath and nearly turned his stomach at the thought of what he’d nearly just done. Gavin threw the gun in the opposite direction and looked up too late to stop what was already in motion.

There was no time to shout, no time to tell Nines to wait. Those long, curved fangs glistened in the light as Nines dislocated his jaw. Dillon let out a pained, horror-filled screech— maybe. Gavin could see his mouth move but the sound was strangely muffled. The reedy howl turned into a choked gurgle when Nines closed his mouth on his throat. Gavin watched, eyes wide, stomach lurching. He’d always read in books about things being ripped to pieces, monsters tearing people apart, things like that. He’d just never thought it was accurate. Just hyperbole to scare a reader, to make the monster that much more inhuman.

It was clear in this moment that Nines wasn’t human. Gavin had to think the sickening, awful sound of flesh ripping away from bone was what hit that message home, burst eardrum be damned. He half wished he’d burst both. This was...

God, it was so… _wet._

It took everything he had to keep from puking from the sound.

Gavin sagged against the wall and sucked in a lungful of air. He stared at the writhing body. He stared at Nines. “Holy fuck,” he whispered, his knees giving out. He slid down the wall and let it carry him to the floor. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

Nines didn’t say a word. He didn’t breathe. He curled his bloody fingers into fists and slowly turned to meet Gavin’s eyes. Blood stained his mouth, his throat, the front of his shirt. His mouth was a jagged mess of fangs and viscera. His eye were…

Gavin swallowed.

They were as black as void, as cold as ice. If there was recognition in them… Gavin didn’t see it. He couldn’t _feel_ it.

_Shit._

“Nines?” he whispered. Jesus, if he had to fight off Nines next— No, no, it wouldn’t come down to that. Gavin gritted his teeth and held tighter to his bleeding arm. “Hey, you can calm down now,” he tried, pitching his voice low, soothing. “No more beast-mode, okay?”

No response. Wonderful. Nines was eyeing him like a particularly juicy steak—and hey, maybe _he_ was the type to suck a steak. Wasn’t that a thought to die with? Gavin felt himself start to laugh despite himself, the fear and leftover adrenaline wreaking havoc on his nerves. Nines flinched at the sound, cocking his head to the side. Gavin sagged heavily and fought to stay on his feet. He’d lost a lot of blood at this point; his fingertips had long gone numb, his skin so very, very cold. He couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

 _That’s the shock,_ his police voice told him. It’d only get worse if he didn’t get some treatment soon. He let his head fall forward, cold sweat thick on his brow. If he could just find his phone he could call for an ambulance. Get some EMTs here, a few dozen squad cars, maybe even the Lieutenant just to round out the shitshow his life was definitely going to become once this all came out of the woodwork. He’d have to make up some lies, figure out a way to explain away the vampirism, explain away _Nines—_

A hand caught him by the chin, lifting his head from its bow. Gavin held his breath; cold as he was, even Nines’s dead skin felt warm. And it was Nines in front of him, at least, some sort of… version of Nines. The pitch black eyes didn’t change who he was. It was Nines. It was his… probably-boyfriend.

Somehow that didn’t stop Gavin’s heart from seizing up anyway.

“Nines?” he whispered, too scared to try pulling away from Nines’s touch. Blood, sticky and thicker than it should be, clung to his skin, prickling in the cold air. Nines pressed closer, not meeting his eyes. He scanned down Gavin’s body, assessing, calculating, and drew his free hand down his shoulder next, fingers digging in just one the side of too-hard. It only took a moment for their destination to become apparent.

Cold, wet fingers traced down his bicep, painting grisly lines as they went. Gavin tried to watch but Nines didn’t seem to want him to— he used his grip on Gavin’s chin to jerk his head in the opposite direction, pinning him to the wall with his face pointed away. Gavin grabbed Nines’s wrist with his good hand. It left his elbow uncovered.

It let his blood flow.

On some level Gavin had always known Nines was big. He stood a few inches taller than himself, dancing the line between six foot and fuck-you tall. His body was one big homage to muscles. Even without the vampire shtick, Gavin had to think Nines was a powerhouse all his own. _With_ that vampirism? Well, it just wasn’t fair at all. It just wasn’t.

Gavin heard Nines’s jaw click back into place. He felt the hand beneath his jaw tighten and another snag his dangling wrist to pin it to the wall above his head. A trickle of heat immediately rolled down his arm. Blood.

Gavin didn’t need to be a doctor to know he couldn’t really afford to lose much more.

“Nines, c’mon,” he tried again, louder to penetrate the tinnitus, kicking out a foot to nudge Nines’s ankle. “It’s me. Gavin. C’mon, you don’t wanna do this.”

A growl rose up, sending the prey instincts flaring in the back of Gavin’s head. Nines moved closer, swaying his face towards the crook of his elbow. His nose, icy cold, brushed his skin. Gavin’s heart lurched. His knees refused to support him, but that was fine; Nines took up the challenge instead with just a shift of his hand to Gavin’s shoulder instead. Gavin braced himself for pain.

Instead, he felt something wet. Something that almost… tickled. He turned his head slowly and gaped when Nines folded his body over his own, pinning him from chest to thigh with his head absolutely buried in his arm.

Oh. Oh, God. Relief warred it out with alarm. Nines ran his tongue along his arm, lapping up every drop of blood in sight. Gavin wilted against the wall. This was… Dillon was bleeding out on the floor; Devon was upstairs, slumped over a radiator and with a probable concussion. Gavin closed his eyes and stifled a moan. For fuck’s sake, a ninety year old woman was rotting up in a guest room above his head.

“Babe, please,” he said, voice hoarse, tone pleading. He tangled his free hand in Nines’s hair and tugged gently, coaxing him away from his arm. They met eyes. Gavin tried for a shaky smile. “There you are. You with me?”

Nines’s eyes were still pure black. He stared without really seeing. Gavin’s face fell. “Nines—”

Nines lunged.

Gavin had just enough time to close his eyes, to brace himself for those teeth… but tore them back open again when Nines’s mouth simply crashed into his own instead. He parted his lips on a gasp and in came Nines’s tongue, coated in thick blood and smearing even more into his skin, his cheeks, his chin. Tightening his grip on Nines’s hair, Gavin struggled to keep breathing. He kissed back despite the instinctive urge to spit. The thought of any part of Dillon in his mouth barely made this kiss worth it.

Nines, however, clearly didn’t feel the same. He attacked his mouth with an almost violent fervor, closing his hands around Gavin’s biceps to hold him in place. Gavin watched the vampire close his eyes, his features softening as the kiss slowly, glacially, changed tempo. Nines held him close, wrapping his arms around Gavin’s neck. A shy, hesitant tongue brushed Gavin’s. Gavin gave a soft moan and held him the way he clearly wanted to be held.

He was worried, Gavin realized. Worried and desperate.  

They pressed their foreheads together and broke the kiss when the need for oxygen grew persistent enough to buckle Gavin’s knees. Gavin panted for breath he couldn’t get, while Nines panted for the breath he didn’t need. They stared into one another’s eyes. “You good?” he mouthed, lips sticky where they brushed Nines’s. God, he was such a mess right now. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

“Gavin,” Nines simply whispered, rasped and worn. His eyes were blue again. “Gavin.”

Gavin tangled his fingers in Nines’s hair. He held him close and tugged his head down, letting Nines hide his face in the crook of his neck. A flicker of _something_ rolled down his spine. He couldn’t help but look at Dillon’s prone form and how it oozed into the ruined, wrinkled rug in the center of the room. It’d been so easy for Nines to tear out his throat. Those teeth were pressed against his right now, sticky lips laying tacky kisses up and down the length of his jugular.

“You’re okay,” he murmured, pushing past the thought. He closed his eyes and let Nines hold his weight. “You’re fine. I’m fine.” Dizzy, but fine.

Nines trembled. Gavin held him tighter, breath hitching when Nines did the same. Only, when Nines held on tighter, it was _tight._ “Why did you run off like that?” Nines hissed, worry undercutting the anger beginning to creep through their embrace. His voice was haggard and rough. Not yet recovered from his freak-out, probably. Thank god he was near the good ear. Without his lips to read, conversation was going to be a challenge. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“Gonna guess you didn’t listen to my voicemails,” Gavin said wryly, earning himself a tighter, warning squeeze before Nines pulled away to look at him properly. God, he was woozy. Gavin kept his hands on Nines, using him as a prop to stay standing. His arm had stopped bleeding at least. Small mercies.

“Do not joke about this,” Nines leveled, expression deathly serious. If he could get paler, he’d be as white as bone. Well, white and red.

“You’re a mess,” Gavin muttered, skimming his thumb through the gore to clean Nines’s mouth. “Is your leg…” A quick look down told him the worst was already healed up. Fucking vampires. Gavin managed to smear some blood across his cheek before Nines grabbed him by the wrist and gave him a good shake.

“Gavin,” he choked. He looked at the floor, suddenly so much smaller. “Please.”

It… said something, how much that hurt Gavin. His stomach sank and he immediately swallowed the wave of guilt fighting to bubble up his throat and spew out of his mouth. He slid his hands down Nines’s shoulders and took his hands in own. “They killed a cop, Nines,” he said, and now, in the aftermath, it sounded weak. He squeezed Nines’s hands. “The entire department was put on the case. They were almost to the point of figuring it out, and I knew I couldn’t just… They didn’t know what they were up against.”

“Neither did you,” Nines whispered, lifting his head to glare.

Gavin shrugged. “I knew more than they did.” He might’ve made a joke then about knowing Nines had his back, that back-up was sure to come. He swallowed that down too. Now wasn’t the time. He looked past Nines’s arm and took in the carnage covering the living room. Bits of Dillon were strewn about, lost beneath ripped pillow fluff and the remains of the entertainment center. “How are we going to explain this away,” he wondered aloud. Dillon’s corpse looked like it’d been mangled by a bear.

Nines sighed and tugged free of his hands. He dug one into his pocket and pulled out a battered looking cell phone. “Go outside,” he said, hitting a speed dial button and putting to phone to his ear. “I’ve got some calls to make.”

That was fair. “Same,” he said simply, weaving through the mess until he saw his own phone buried halfway between a collapsed coffee table and an overturned family photo. He brushed the glass off and hit Tina’s contact as he made he way to the door. He moved fast despite his condition; the need to get out was stronger than the need to keel over, and for that he was more than grateful.

The cold, crisp winter air stung his cheeks once he made it to the porch. Tina, no doubt sick with worry, answered on the first ring.

“Hey there, honey bunches,” Gavin said drolly. “Miss m—”

“Gavin Renee Reed! You fucking asshole!” Tina shouted in his no-longer-the-good-ear ear.

Gavin tripped over a step, grabbing for the railing as he drew the phone a few inches from his head. “What the fuck, Chen?” he shouted right back, fighting a grin. God, it felt nice hearing her voice right about now. “I live to see another day and you congratulate me by bursting my eardrum?” He toyed with putting the call on speaker but decided against it. Her voice, loud as it was, still sounded tinny, warring it out with the ringing in his other ear. Gavin furrowed his brow, catching up with what she’d said. He frowned. “And how many times do I have to tell you my middle name isn’t Renee?” She called everyone that. It was her default, she’d say, no matter who you were or if she did in fact know better.

“Uh, I don’t know, _Reed,”_ she hissed back. “How many times do I have to call you an idiot before you fucking realize it and stop being one?!”

“If it hasn’t taken by now, you know as well as I do that it’s probably not meant to be,” he drawled, drawing out another burst of swearing on her part. Gavin let it wash over him. He smiled and rubbed at his eyes. “I’m fine by the way,” he said when she paused to take a breath. “Just in case you were curious.”

That caught her off guard. The sound of her heavy breathing was loud in the earpiece, but Gavin put up with it. He leaned against the railing and pushed off it, moving towards the street. He’d need to call the cops soon. He winced as he tried to move his weirdly angled thumb. An ambulance too.

“Where are you?” Tina said suddenly. “Where the fuck did you go?”

There was no easy way to say it, so Gavin just said it. “I caught the murderer. I’ve got him handcuffed to a radiator right now.” Best not to mention his brother strewn about in pieces on the living room floor.

Silence. Of course, he assumed it was silence. To his battered ears, it sounded more like a low-frequency ring. Gavin debated sitting on the curb. It’d be pretty cold… He didn’t want to get into his car, even if it would be warmer. He didn’t know where his keys had gone and he wasn’t looking forward to going back inside to find them. A stiff breeze rolled by, adding to the chill already alive and well on his skin. Fuck, maybe he should call for Nines to find his coat for him.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” Tina finally said, snapping him from his thoughts. “Gavin, I swear to god, if you are fucking with me I’ll—”

“I’m already down a liter of blood and with a dislocated thumb. Probably burst an eardrum too, so try to talk a bit louder if you can. Hearing is a bit of a chore as you can imagine,” he recited dispassionately. “I really don’t think you can make my night worse than it already is.”

She sputtered. Gavin let her. God, he was dizzy. He hobbled over to the mailbox and leaned on it heavily. Good enough for now.

“Where are you?” she snapped, and he could practically hear her reaching for her desk phone. “What’s the address? I’ll call—”

“Yeah, not a good time right now,” he winced, squeezing the fingers that could still move to get some blood flow back into them. “Give me like, forty-five minutes. Then you can call all the calvary you want.”

“Gavin.” Her voice was painfully flat. “Where. Are. You.”

He rolled his eyes for the audience he lacked and told her. “Listen, I’m fine for the moment, and it’s really important you wait.” He glanced back towards the house, hearing movement. “There’s some… stuff that we gotta do before the cops get here.”

_“We?”_

The door opened and stayed open, Nines pushing out onto the porch. “Yes, _we._ Tina, I gotta go,” he said abruptly, moving towards Nines. The beautiful bastard had his coat in hand. Gavin was besieged by the overwhelming desire to kiss him again, bloody mouth be damned. “Just send the squad cars and EMTs to the address, alright?” He mouthed to Nines, _you good?_ He got a nod in return and looked down at the grass. “And Tina? This time, seriously, wait forty-five minutes, okay? Like, it’s really important that you wait.”

Tina was silent. “Is your friend there?”

The tension in his muscles eased. “Yeah,” he said, glancing at Nines as the vampire sent off some texts. “Yeah, he’s here. I’m fine, okay? A little beat up but still on my feet.”

“Well, it’d take more than some nutjob to dent that thick fucking skull of yours,” she said ruefully. He probably owed her a year’s worth of Taco Bell for all the shit he’d put her through tonight. “I’ll head out with the cars once I call it in. I’m riding with you to the hospital, you hear me? I want to hear everything. The truth this time.”

Maybe he’d get lucky and pass out on a stretcher first. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Gavin smiled anyway. “I’ll see you soon, alright? Remember, forty-five minutes.”

“Yeah, got it. I’m… I’m glad you’re okay, Gav.”

“Me too, Teen.” He hung up and put his phone into his pocket. All the energy he had before evaporated into the air, stolen away in the condensation clouding the night around him. Gavin stared up at the dark, cloudy winter sky. He breathed it in and appreciated that he even could. It chilled his lungs, but that just meant he was still alive.

Still alive, and still with shit to do.

Gavin roused himself and moved towards Nines by the curb. A pair of headlights was approaching slowly down the street, and with the way Nines stared at it, it was a safe bet to assume the car carried whoever it was he’d been making calls to. Gavin stood at his side and took the coat from his proffered hand, putting it on quickly. It wasn’t a ton better but it _was_ better. He nudged Nines with his arm once it was on. “You’ve got a bit less than an hour to do your thing.”

“They’ll only need half,” Nines said, nudging back slightly. The car pulled up and bathed them both in its headlights. Gavin winced and lifted a hand to cover his eyes. Nines didn’t bother. A few doors opened and slammed shut. It was a big van, Gavin realized once the engine was cut, taking the lights with it. Something like a delivery van with no windows and a big, rear door. A few bodies exited and moved towards the house without a word spoken. One, however, approached them slowly.

There weren’t street lights near them, so Gavin waited for his eyes to adjust. The figure in front of him wasn’t very impressive looking. In fact, they seemed pretty strange, all bulky and swishy as they walked, as if they were wearing a massive windbreaker. Something glinted around their face, and it took a few moments for Gavin to realize what it was that was making this person’s silhouette so weird; they were covered to head to foot in what looked to be an off-brand kind of Hazmat suit, face completely obscured with a gas mask that would look more at home in a museum than on a suburban street.

“One of your friends?” Gavin guessed, leaning against Nines’s shoulder when another bout of lightheadedness rose up to bloom in black spirals across his field of vision. His head was starting to pound something awful, the sounds not helping things. The person was shorter than he was, so he didn’t view them as an immediate threat, but the gas mask face was more than creepy. After the night he’d already had Gavin could definitively say he was done with creepy surprises and strange, weird strangers skulking around an active crime scene.

He was gratified when Nines curled an arm around his shoulders, taking some of the weight off his feet. “Rooney,” he said, addressing the stranger instead of Gavin. “Thank you for coming quickly.”

Gavin opened his mouth to complain, but was cut off by a gross, wet sucking sound coming from behind Rooney’s mask. “Keep waking me,” he wheezed, and Gavin was assaulted by the sickly memory of an old neighborhood dog that would wander the street, wheezing and sucking in spit with every breath. “Even I… need my beauty rest, Arkay.” His mom had told him to keep away from the thing. That it probably had rabies or mange.

“It’s important,” Nines said, breaking Gavin from the memory. He fought to pay attention; it was probably in bad form to think of rabies when talking to one of Nines’s… friends? Coworkers? “There are two bodies inside, one dead and the other unconscious. Clean the living room and take the corpse.”

Rooney seemed to swell up at that, shoulders lifting, metaphorical eyes glinting behind the glass lenses. “Does that—”

“No,” Nines cut in. “You can’t keep it. It goes to headquarters.” Rooney deflated. Nines stayed firm for a minute, then let out a sigh. “After they confirm suspicions I can put in a request for you to take the remains.”

The excitement was back, strong enough for even Gavin to feel it. Rooney bobbed his head and clasped his gloved hands in front of him. “And… the _live_ subject?” He leaned forward, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Gavin lifted a hand and set it on Nines’s shoulder. He took a shaky step forward. He really didn’t like how this guy said _live subject._ “That one goes with me,” he said, putting as much command into his voice as he could manage. He glanced up at Nines. “Human perp, human cops. Besides,” he muttered, looking back towards the open doorway. “There’s no way we’re explaining shit and putting an end to the case without a perp to put on trial.”

Nines’s brow furrowed. “He knows too much.”

“You think anyone will believe him?” Gavin snorted, patting Nines’s shoulder weakly before giving in to the urge to lean against him. He nuzzled his shoulder for a few seconds and then turned to look at Rooney. With the amount of medical equipment upstairs and Granny dead and gone in the side room, it’d be an easy thing to sell it as residual cult bullshit. It’d fall in line nice and neat with what the higher ups already assumed was going on, and Gavin could be the one to brag about putting it all together first. “Just let me and mine handle the crackpot. Who the fuck are you, by the way? You… forensics?” If he put anything in his mouth in front of him, Gavin was going to give up the ghost here and now.

“I’m… Rooney,” he said, as if that told Gavin everything he needed to know and more.

Wow. Okay. “You sure are, buddy.” Gavin braced a hand on Nines’s shoulder and extended the other. Damn, they were standing pretty far apart. Rooney took a few steps closer, curiosity dripping off his small body. He slowly lifted his own glove-and-Tyvek arm. “I’m soon-to-be-Detective Reed. Pleasure.”

Nines caught his hand before he could take Rooney’s. “Don’t touch him,” he murmured, shooting a nasty look at the other vampire.

“Dude, chill.”

Nines squeezed his wrist and didn’t back down. “You have work to do,” he told the masked figure. His voice was cold. “Go do it.”

Rooney didn’t seem bothered by the tone shift. He bobbed his head, glass eyes glinting in the streetlights, and set off to follow the others milling about the front of the house. Gavin tugged on his arm, wincing when Nines just tightened his grip, refusing to let him go. “What gives?” he mumbled, dragging Nines’s attention back onto him. “I can’t be friendly to vamps who aren’t you?” _Or trying to kill me,_ he added silently.

“Rooney is a Cultist,” Nines said, words clipped, bloody lips curled into a frown. He looked at the ground and slowly loosened his hand. When he looked at Gavin, he almost appeared meek. “He’s lethal to humans. Even something like a handshake would infect you.”

“It’d turn me into a vampire?” Gavin started, eyes wide.

Nines shook his head and slowly lowered himself onto the curb. He brushed his mouth with his fingertips and sighed when they came away covered in gore. “No,” he murmured, rubbing his fingers together. “You’d get sick.” He glanced up at Gavin. “You’d die.”

Ah. Great. He vaguely remembered them from Vampire 101. Hadn’t really figured he’d run into one given how gross Nines made them sound, but then again, strange circumstances brought strange people together. Gavin looked at the open door behind him and resigned himself to keeping clear of any and all gas masks for the foreseeable future. He sank down into a squat, falling onto the curb beside Nines with a grunt. “God, I’m sore,” he complained, running his good hand through his cold, sweaty hair. He tried for a self-deprecating laugh. “Guess I learned my lesson, huh?”

Nines said nothing.

“I called you like twenty times,” Gavin went on. He shifted his hand to the back of his neck, rubbing at it awkwardly. Nines wasn’t even looking at him. “Were you in a meeting or something? I mean, I tried… Y’know what? Nevermind.” He shook his head and sighed. “Doesn’t matter. You’re here now and we’re both good and I’m just grateful you—”

“My boss wants me to kill you.”

Gavin froze, his eyes wide and locked on the pavement between his shoes. Nines was as still as a statue, his shoulder just barely brushing his and suddenly not quite as comforting as it’d been a few minutes ago. Kill? Well, that wasn’t all that surprising. Nines had told him before, back in the interrogation room that there would be consequences for him getting involved, falling into the fold. Gavin swallowed and kept his eyes on the ground.

“Are you going to?” he asked. Dammit. His mouth was dry. Gavin swallowed again. He flicked his gaze towards Nines just in time to catch him give a shrug. “Haven’t decided yet, I guess.”

Nines didn’t rise to the bait. He reached out without looking and snagged Gavin’s hand, minding his fucked up thumb. “You scared me, Gavin,” he said simply. His hand tightened around Gavin’s. His jaw twitched. “You scared me a lot.”

Gavin… itched. Under his skin, he itched. He looked at Nines cradling his hand and then out at the street. His thoughts were slow, sluggish. Molasses poured in winter, sticking to every single surface and refusing to move. It was the guilt doing it. He knew it was. He curled his fingers around Nines’s, squeezing as tight as he could manage. Nines’s hands were so soft. If he leaned in, he could smell their scents combined. Nines was still wearing his clothes. Christ.

“Are we dating?”

Nines stiffened. Gavin’s eyes widened. He bit down harshly on his lip to keep down any more word vomit at risk of spilling out.

“Excuse me?” Nines whispered, voice soft, fragile.

The pain wasn’t enough of a deterrent. Gavin opened his mouth, “Are we dating? Because we had sex and you’re wearing my clothes and you’re holding my hand.” Gavin shifted and turned towards Nines. With his other hand, he knotted his fingers in his hair. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it, y’know? I thought I was going to die, and I kept second guessing it, and I just— I just think I need to know, especially if I’m going to die either way.” He sucked in a breath and let it out shakily, looking Nines in the eye. “You’re… Fuck, you’re the best thing I’ve ever had. I just… I really like you.”

Gavin’s hand, cold as it was, felt colder when Nines let go of it. Nines turned his body forward fast enough to blur. He wrapped his arms around his knees, hugging himself. “We can’t talk about this right now,” he said tightly.

“Why not?” Gavin pressed, leaning forward to force some eye contact. Every muscle protested the movement. He did it anyway. “Do you not like me?” He bit down harshly on the inside of his cheek. “‘Cause I can take it. I can take rejection.” He’d done it all his life with every single person he’d ever dated. Too married to the job. It’d always been his problem. He’d… Fuck, he’d nearly died for it tonight. Why would Nines want to be with him after this?”

Gavin covered his face with his good hand. He pulled back and got out of Nines’s space. “It’s fine,” he said, more to himself than to the shivering vampire trying so hard to not lean against him. “I get it.”

It just would’ve been nice to have one more kiss before his almost-but-not-really boyfriend killed him for _the job._ One that didn’t taste like blood. But then again, maybe that was about as much as Gavin deserved. It sounded about right. It really did.

“Gavin.”

He didn’t look up. He sucked in a breath and buried the pain under everything else. He told himself not to think about why this time hurt more than the others. There was sound coming from behind them. Gavin dragged his hand down his face and turned. “I think the Ghoul Squad is done,” he murmured, watching them trail out one by one with a body bag held between them. A few in the rear carried garbage bags of… well, of probably bits and pieces that wouldn’t fit in the body bag. Gavin’s stomach turned at the thought. He let the immediate present take over his focus. “D-Did they just get rid of the vamp evidence?” His voice nearly broke all the same.

There was nothing for a moment. Nines sat like a statue, cold and unmoving, before all at once nodding like he’d only just heard Gavin speak. He stood in one single motion, leaving Gavin behind. Gavin scrambled to get up too but Nines set a hand on his shoulder. When it came down to it, Nines was stronger. He held him down and kept him on the curb.

“Nines?”

Nines refused to look at him. “It’s fine,” he said flatly. “You don’t need to get up.” His head tilted to the side, and Nines looked down the street. “Your squad is nearly here.”

“What, really?” Gavin checked the clock on his phone. _Tina, you asshole._ It’d barely been thirty five minutes. He tipped his head back and groaned. Now that Nines mentioned it, he could just hear the sound of sirens echoing from far away, ringing out of time with the ringing in his ears. He looked up at Nines. It only hurt a little to see him from down here, beautiful and aloof. Untouchable. “Are your guys good to go then?”

A nod. Gavin nodded too, covering Nines’s hand with his own as he watched the approaching sirens turn onto their street. Nines let him get away with it for a minute before pulling away without a word.

The ambulance arrived first, lights flashing, splashing spears of red along the pitch black pavement in regular pulses. Gavin stared at it blankly. “They’re going to keep me all night,” he said aloud. Prick him full of needles and probably test him for tetanus and all sorts of flesh eating diseases that bathroom probably hosted. Maybe even give him back some of the blood he’d left lying in that bag on the floor. He kneaded at his eyes and let out a harsh sigh. “This is going to suck.”

When he didn’t hear a response, he lifted his head. Nines was a few feet away from him, signalling for the Cultist-mobile to be on its way. Gavin shifted and tried to stand up, but a wave of dizziness took his knees out from under him before he managed to lift himself a foot. “Nines?” he called out, heart stuttering when Nines just paused without turning. Gavin licked his dry lips, tasting stale blood. He had a sinking feeling. The question on his lips refused to be asked.

Common sense told him that Nines didn’t stand there stationary as the flashing lights and sirens grew closer. He didn’t stand like a statue, frozen in Gavin’s line of sight as they poured out of their vehicles and began to set up a perimeter. But then everything happened in a whirlwind of shapes and dull colors, and Nines’s figure was the one unmovable constant. The paramedics swarmed him, asking dozens of questions, checking his pulse, throwing a bright orange shock blanket around his trembling shoulders. He told them what he could, showing them his thumb. It’d need to be reset, he heard through a hissing fog. He nodded and barely felt the pain of it being shoved back into its socket.

It didn’t hurt. He waved off their offers of drugs. Nines seemed to take a step, then another. A group of cops ran past, cutting off Gavin’s line of sight, and Nines grew all the more distant. Gavin stared blankly out at the scene unfurling. At the officers in their cars, at the flashing lights bathing the entire street. Armed with guns, they burst through the already open door. What they would find in the living room, Gavin didn’t know. He couldn’t know, and he couldn’t bring himself to care.

All he cared about was watching that smudge of pale and dark disappear in the chaos. He watched, and then Nines was gone. He was… gone.

That hurt. That… That really hurt.

“We’ve got the suspect!” a voice called out. Tina. She had her gun drawn as she leaned out of the doorway, signaling for the EMTs to bring a stretcher. She flashed Gavin a grin he didn’t return. “Call in body disposal! There’s a corpse upstairs!”

He didn’t have time to chase after Nines, to hunt through the night until he caught him on the streets like he had before. The job called. It called to the both of them to do what they knew they had to do. Nines was gone now anyway. Gone without a backwards glance, part of the shadows that gave this city its mysteries and secrets.

Gavin forced it from his mind, even though it hurt more than anything else had tonight.

“Reed?” the Lieutenant shouted, slamming his car door behind him. Finally here. Great. “The fuck are you doing here?”

Gavin waved off the paramedics and climbed out of the open ambulance. He had a job to do. He better get to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3 still two more chapters to go


	18. Chapter 18

The room was cold. 

On some level, Nines felt he deserved that.

Four days had passed since that night in the Price house. Four days of hiding evidence, burying leads, and putting up walls between the still living Devon and the recently culled Devereaux. All Enforcers within the city had been called in for damage control. All but Nines, that was. 

Of course, Rodalia had attempted to contact him. She’d tried multiple times, each missive more terse and threatening than the last. He hadn’t made her happy, she had said. Not with that exit of his, not with the messiness of how the case finally came to a close. Standard procedure insisted they remove every last scrap of evidence that there had been vampiric involvement in the murders at all. Allowing Gavin to arrest Devon was yet another indiscretion on his shoulders, just another burden he wasn’t permitted to carry. 

It took a house call from a fellow Enforcer to make Nines find the courage to go back to headquarters. He never should have answered the door. He knew he never had guests, so why had he bothered to respond to the knock...

Nines shifted uneasily beneath Rodalia’s seething glare and let out a bitter sigh. He knew why he answered the door. He knew well enough who he wanted to see on the other side of it. Lifting his head to look at his boss, Nines resigned himself to disappointment on all fronts. Rodalia was going to make this as painful an experience for him as she was capable of making it. Daydreaming about what-ifs wouldn’t help him now. 

The cell phone in his hand—a new one with a new number, all the better to hide from the one person who refused to stop calling him—creaked quietly as he tightened his grip. He was here now, seated before the executioner. He’d run as far as he could, struggled as long as his strength would let him. There was nothing left to do but see it through. Maybe Rodalia would surprise him.

The casing on his phone threatened to crack beneath his grip. Maybe he would manage to surprise her for a change.

Something shifted in the air, imperceptible but strangely unsettling. Nines’s body tensed. Rodalia’s chair creaked as she leaned forward, her red nails poised on the desktop in front of her like ten little daggers dipped in blood. Nines swallowed. Should he let her have the first word? Should he take it for himself? There didn’t seem to be any winners in this fight. His knee ached to bounce nervously, but with concentrated effort he managed to hold it still.

She slowly folded her hands, one over the other. Her stony face shifted as she spoke in a cool, inflectionless voice, “Do you have something to report?”

The dissonance of the past few days hit Nines squarely between the eyes. What was she planning? This felt like a normal meeting, like any of the dozens of progress reports he’d given her over the years. His eyes flickered to the floor despite his best efforts to meet her head on. “In a sense,” he answered. He pressed his phone flat against his thigh, desperate to keep it close in case it should ring. Only one person had his number now. He hoped to any god listening that it might ring anyway. Nines tore his gaze away from the floor. “I’m here to complete our interrupted meeting from the other day.”

Her posture eased the slightest amount. Her pleasure had to be great to be so obvious through the distaste. “Then I take it you dealt with the subject of our last… parting,” she said, so vague yet so unnervingly not. There was only one correct answer to her question. She looked so sure she’d hear it now.

Nines was a terrible person. There was an almost manic sense of pleasure welling up inside him as he said, “No. I didn’t.” He took in a breath that made him a little dizzy. He was going to break his phone at this rate. Still, he found it impossible to relax as anger took over Rodalia’s forced calm. 

There was a beat of silence. Her lips were razor thin. “Why not?” 

“Because I’m not going to do it,” he said. Just to make sure he’d dug himself into the deepest hole he could manage, he added, “I don’t  _ want  _ to do it.”

A muscle twitched in the Chief Inspector’s jaw. Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?” Her tone was flat with the disappointment that had become Nines’s old friend long before tonight. “What you  _ want  _ to do has little impact on what has to be done.”

Of course. Of course what he wanted didn’t matter. When had it  _ ever  _ mattered? “I won’t say it again. I won’t kill the human officer who assisted me in this case.” Nines sat up a little taller. “I won’t tell you his name or badge number, I won’t aid in the eradication of him, and I won’t allow any harm to befall him.” He licked at his lips, the anger petering out as the cold poured back in. “Forget about him. That’s... That’s all I wanted to say.”

Rodalia’s posture took on a decidedly hostile sharpness. “You aren’t in any position to be making demands like that,” she told him. “I thought that seeing you back in here after that infantile display from before meant that you had learned the error of your ways. I’m disappointed in you, Nines. Very, very disappointed.”

Nines nodded. He could see that well enough. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t change my stance though.” His cell phone vibrated in his hand, and Nines flipped it over quickly, scanning the message on the screen. The contact name was just a stream of numbers, but he’d only given one person his phone number. He knew well enough who it was on the other end. Nines took a deep breath and forced his fingers to do more than just hover over the screen. 

_ Yes,  _ he texted back.  _ I need your help.  _

Rodalia’s sharp nails clicked on the surface of her desk impatiently. 

“I take it you’re prepared to accept the punishment for insubordination then?”

Nines didn’t bother lifting his head. He watched the typing bubble appear in the corner of his screen. The phone gave another short pulse of vibration as the reply arrived. The text simply read,  _ I’m coming in. _

“Would you put that phone away?” Rodalia snarled, readying herself to reach over the desk to dispose of it herself. “You showed so much promise when we took you in, but clearly you haven’t appreciated any of the stability we’ve given—”

The door gave a loud, nails-on-a-chalkboard type screech, cutting her off before she could finish. As one they turned to watch the door slowly skid open, catching on the warped floorboard as it always did. A low muttering was just audible; Nines felt his pupils dilate, his jaw tensing as warning bells sounded in his head. He knew it wasn’t a threat and yet…

“Christ, fix your door,” a familiar voice grunted as the door finally gave way, depositing a pale faced, finely dressed vampire in the embrace of Rodalia’s tiny office. Connor lifted his hand to fix his disheveled hair. Rodalia failed to stifle her intake of breath. “Sorry I’m late,” he said pleasantly, addressing Rodalia while only looking at Nines. “I had a bit of trouble finding my way here.”

Nines locked eyes with Connor when it became clear he couldn’t hide from him here. Time slowed to a crawl, and Nines took in a shaky, conflicted breath that threatened to catch in his throat. How long had it been? A decade? Two? Connor looked the same. Of course, they both did. Still perfectly coiffed, still bright eyed and intimidating in his Luminary-funded wardrobe— and wasn’t that eye-opening. Connor wasn’t in the casual wear he had worn the last time they found themselves in the same room together. This time he looked like the Luminary he was. His suit was an inky black, the deep blue shirt beneath the jacket offering some softness but not enough to make someone feel at ease with him so close, so watchful. 

The sight of his cell phone, screen still bright from his last text, sent butterflies fluttering in the pit of Nines’s stomach. Nines looked away first when the feeling grew too strong to handle. His hands were shaking now. He clasped them tight to keep them still.  _ Calm down,  _ he ordered his disobedient limbs.  _ It’s just Connor. It’s just your brother. _

“Nines,” Rodalia murmured, refusing to take her eyes off of Connor. “What is the meaning of this?”

It took a lot of effort to lift his head up enough to look at her. He made it work if only to see just how stunned she was at this turn of events. “You said it yourself. I’m not in any position to make demands.” The air shifted as Connor came closer. Nines could sense him standing at his side, a show of tacit support given without a single word exchanged. Nines felt himself relax a little bit. “I found someone who was. I believe you know my brother?”

“Oh, we’ve spoken before,” Connor answered for her, nudging Nines’s shoulder with his hip. Connor folded his arms and looked at Rodalia with uncharacteristic distaste. “Chief Inspector Rodalia. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you in person but I can’t say the circumstances that brought me here tonight are conducive to pleasure of any kind.”

Rodalia struggled not to flinch. For someone so used to kowtowing to the upper clans, she seemed out of her depth dealing with a Luminary who was unhappy with _ her. _ The progress of a case, sure. But her? She braced her hands on her desk and visibly debated standing up. “Mr. Arkay, I—”

“It’s Kamski-Arkay,” Connor interjected sharply. Nines frowned. Since when were they hyphenating their names?

“Mr. Kamski-Arkay,” Rodalia corrected, dipping her head politely. Ever the diplomat. “What can I do for you?” She looked at Nines with unveiled displeasure. “It’s a singular pleasure to speak to you in person and not through a telephone, I must say.”

Connor barely twitched. Nines supposed twenty odd years of dealing with vampire higher society left one woefully immune to targeted niceties. “What you can do for me, Chief Inspector Rodalia, is explain to me why my brother felt the need to ask me down here.” He crossed his arms imperiously, staring at her with thinly veiled impatience. “From what he’s told me, I believe you have no formal grounds to complain about his work or service in your organization.”

“Oh?” Rodalia shifted to give Nines a filthy look. “Is that so? And what do you believe my current attitude should be towards your brother?”

“It’s simple really. I believe he deserves a commendation for his service, along with the benefits that come along with it.” Connor looked down at Nines fondly, but with an air of trepidation that only Nines could pick up on. Like he was afraid if he looked away for too long Nines might just disappear entirely, never to be seen again. It wasn’t a bad assumption to make. “I  _ also  _ want you to cease demanding he turn over his resources from this latest case. I don’t believe you’ve any right to order such a thing, and I find the matter very, very distasteful.”

“Distasteful…” She trailed off as the meaning slowly became clear. She cleared her throat and tried for a tight smile. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Your brother is insisting we let a human continue going about his daily life with knowledge of our inner secrets. Surely you can’t believe that’s acceptable.”

“I don’t see how it isn’t. I thought I made myself clear.” Connor looked at Nines as if asking for his opinion, which Nines carefully gave with a nod of his head. Connor smiled a personal sort of smile before morphing the expression into a frown meant only for Rodalia. “Willing humans are allocated as blood dolls to those who have earned them. Are you suggesting we should terminate all of those relationships as well simply because it permits a human to know our secret?”

“Our caste isn’t permitted such luxuries.” Rodalia looked towards Nines with alarm. “Did you… Are you intending to make this police officer your blood doll?” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you intending to turn him?”

Nines didn’t know how to answer. He avoided her eyes and bit down on his lip. It didn’t matter what he wanted or intended— the only thing he cared about was making sure Gavin was safe.

A hand settled on Nines’s shoulder. Connor cleared his throat. “His intentions don’t concern you, Inspector.”

“They do if he’s planning on undermining our laws while under my authority,” she shot back. 

Connor scowled. “My authority supersedes yours last time I checked. If that’s not enough for you, do I need to get my sire to repeat what I’ve just said?” he asked as he lifted up his phone. He raised it towards his ear to make his point. The raised brow was just overkill, but Nines wouldn’t be the one to say it. “I promise you it’d be easy if that’s how you want to do this; Elijah is right outside, taking stock of your headquarters, and I believe the authority of the Luminary Elder leaves little room for doubt.”

Rodalia’s face took on an ashen quality. Her fingers curled into her hands, hiding her nails from sight. “I don’t believe you are properly apprised of the situation, Mr. Kamski-Arkay, and you fail to see the significance of his refusal. Your brother’s indiscretions threaten to upheave everything we strive to maintain.”

Connor’s expression clouded over. Nines blinked, experiencing the strangest sense of deja vu. It used to be like this before, back when they were human; they were too young to be as important as they were in the running of their company. The board of directors hadn’t taken well to it, questioning every decision they made. Connor had grown up quickly under their constant subterfuge. He’d had to, and Nines had sat at his side, watching it all just as he did now. 

“The way I understand it,” Connor recited icily, “is that my brother removed a rogue fledgling that threatened to  _ upheave  _ everything we strive to maintain. One of my bloodline no less.” His head cocked to the side but his eyes didn’t blink. “We of the Luminaries are perfectly happy with his efforts and consider this case closed. What I  _ fail  _ to see is why you seek to punish him for his success by expecting him to give you more than he’s already given you.”

“Punish?” Rodalia glared daggers at Nines. “He believes it’s punishment to expect him to clean up his own messes?” Her lip curled into a muted snarl that she stifled when she turned back to address Connor. “He involved a human police officer in our affairs. It is protocol to erase any evidence that might lead to the discovery of our organization, no matter how...  _ useful,”  _ she sneered, “the human may have been in the moment.”

He couldn’t stay silent at that. “He won’t tell anyone,” Nines cut in, venom sharpening his tone. All eyes turned to look at him. “He’s not a threat to security. It’s because of him that we even have a murderer off the streets now.” 

“Your faith in him maintaining his silence is admirable,” Rodalia lied, plain and simple, “but admiration isn’t a guarantee.”

“We’ve used humans for worse reasons, Chief Inspector.” Connor lifted his phone and toyed with the screen, and neither of them missed how tense Rodalia grew at the very implication that he might summon Kamski—clan leader of the Luminaries,  _ Elijah Kamski— _ in here to take over negotiations— while they could still be called negotiations, Nines amended. A Luminary like Kamski didn’t  _ negotiate.  _ “The way I see it, the cop is no longer your concern.” 

She opened her mouth to argue. Connor simply raised a finger, forcing her into silence. He brought the phone a little closer to his ear. “That is,” he said, “unless you’d like to  _ make  _ it my concern.”

Rodalia couldn’t hide her grimace. “No,” she spat, covering her face with her hand to knead at her eyes. The blood red of her nails glistened wetly in the light. “No, it’s… fine.”

Nines didn’t dare breathe. “It is?”

“Apparently,” she answered, dropping her hand with barely reined in disgust. She looked long and hard at Nines, then marginally less at Connor. “You will take responsibility for any… indiscretions… that should arise from letting that human live?”

Connor flashed her a smile any politician would die for, dropping the hand holding his phone back into his pocket. “Of course,” he promised. “I wouldn’t dream of putting that weight on you.”

“How kind of you,” she said dryly, returning her focus to Nines. He didn’t miss how her lips curled immediately. “And how… resourceful of you to take our discussion in this direction.”

That wasn’t the word for it. Scared, more like. Cowardly. His back had been against a wall and there was no other direction to turn to to make it out with Gavin alive too. “You didn’t give me a choice,” Nines said quietly. She’d never given him much of a choice. “I’ve solved a lot of cases for you. I deserve more than you’ve given me for that.”

“Is that so.”

Nines carefully lifted his head. He nodded.

“And what do you  _ think  _ you deserve?” she demanded. There was a warning in her tone, telling him to be careful what he wished for. Stupid. Nines didn’t need a warning to know wanting things was dangerous. It didn’t stop him from wanting anyway. 

And he did want. He wanted so much. A better haven. Respect. Nines looked at Rodalia and felt a flood of things rush towards his tongue, each more desperate than the next. He deserved better, but better wasn’t concrete. Better wasn’t quantifiable. Peace, acceptance, purpose. He wanted a place that felt like home to come back to. He wanted quiet swing music and the scent of roasting garlic. He wanted to wake up in the evening to a warm, heavy weight on his chest and sharp green eyes staring at him through a pair of long whiskers. Nines wanted… He wanted… 

He couldn’t say it. Not here, not with everyone watching. Connor was a firm, strong pillar at his side. His hand was close enough to brush Nines’s shoulder. He wanted that too, didn’t he? He wanted a lot that didn’t make much sense to him right now. 

Nines inhaled slowly. He exhaled even slower. He ran his fingers over the shape of a familiar business card in his pocket. He’d kept it in his wallet all this time, kept it even after he knew how to find the one he’d needed to find. In the time since that night in the Price house, Nines had worn the edges soft with his fingers. He’d traced that name and the official symbols beside it, praying he might have the real thing instead.  

_ What do you think you deserve? _

“I quit,” he said simply. This was better. “I’m done.”

Rodalia gaped. At his side, Connor spun on his heel, facing him fully to stare holes in the side of his head. “Excuse me?” his former boss spat. “You  _ what?” _

Nines blinked, tilting his head to the side. “I quit,” he repeated. A wellspring of suicidal bravery took control of his words. “I’m tired of being your lapdog. I’m tired of being hated by my peers. I’ve solved my case and put an end to the murders. It’s a reasonable note to retire on.”

“Are you sure?” Connor breathed, looking between him and Rodalia. He bit down on his lip. “That’s quite a step to take.”

“I’m sure,” Nines said easily. He felt awash with a calm that was as foreign as it was welcome. “In fact, I’ll clean out my desk now,” Nines said with a hard look that sent Rodalia’s nostrils flaring. He didn’t have a desk; she’d never let him have one here to begin with. Bad for morale. He wondered what was worse though: giving Internal Affairs a proper place to call home or seeing the Chief Inspector herself looking like she’d just sucked on a lemon. 

Nines rose to his feet woodenly. His knees threatened to give out under his weight. Connor snagged him by the elbow and offered him support. “We’ll take our leave now,” his brother led, tugging gently at his arm. Connor pushed Nines towards the door, pausing just behind him to address Rodalia one last time. “Thank you for taking such good care of my brother, Inspector,” he said, dripping mirth with every word. “I truly believe our reunion is all thanks to you and your organization.”

Nines couldn’t help it: he turned around just to see how she took it.

“It’s… my pleasure,” she spat between her fangs, eyes sharp enough to kill while her lips were curled into the most placid smile he’d ever seen. She clenched her hands tightly, nails digging into the meat of her palms. They disappeared from view entirely. Nines paused. He had never seen her look so small before.

“I’m sure it is,” Connor said breezily. “Have a good night.” And with that said, Nines found a hand on his shoulder. The door screeched as they shoved it open, and it screeched again when Connor yanked it shut behind them. Tried to, at least. “What the hell is up with this door?” he muttered, pulling pitifully at the handle when it refused to meet the door jam. 

“The floor is warped,” Nines said, reaching around him to close it with one harsh yank that had taken five years to perfect. His mind reeled. He appreciated the dose of normality for what it was, screech be damned.

“Sounds about right,” Connor mumbled, crossing his arms as he looked around the main offices. Several desks were occupied by Enforcers trying and failing to look as if they were working. With two Luminaries in the building, Nines knew they weren’t. Secrets traveled fast around here. If they hadn’t pieced together who Connor was already, they would by seeing the two of them standing this close, faces too similar to be anything but kin. 

A hand ghosted over his arm. Connor looked up at him with a conflicted expression on his face. He glanced around the shoddy, derelict room, at the watchful eyes and thinly veiled distaste flooding the air. Connor whispered, “Do you really work here?”

Nines shrugged, and then froze when he spotted Elijah Kamski across the room. God, the man looked the same as he had the night he saw him at that party, chatting up Connor for the first time. Sharp-eyed, calculating, pressing into the cracks he saw around him to unbalance everyone and everything that got in his way. 

“Nines?”

“Not anymore,” Nines said, pulling his attention away from him to return it to his brother. His… brother. The one he hadn’t spoken to in decades but had called up out of the blue for a favor. Nines covered his face with his hand, rubbing at his eyes as if that could assuage the guilt pooling in his stomach. He’d told himself he wouldn’t use Connor the way everyone else used him. Desperate times may call for desperate measures, but… fuck. 

A hand settled on his wrist, tugging until he let it fall away from his face. Connor looked worried. Great. “Did I handle that poorly? You didn’t give me much to go on with that email you sent.” He looked at Rodalia’s door, biting down on his bottom lip. “I should’ve called you sooner, asked you about what it was you wanted me to do for you. We could’ve coordinated this better. God, I’m sorry, Nines. This was your job. I lost you that.”

How could he blame himself for this? It wasn’t his fault that Nines had waited until the hour before to break down and reach out. “You didn’t… do anything wrong.” Nines looked at a spot over Connor’s shoulder to avoid his big, wide eyes. A few heads were turned their way, and Nines frowned, using the grip Connor had on his wrist to pull him away from the watchful eyes and back towards the stairs that led to the outside world. Nines glanced at Connor, then at the floor. “You were perfect,” he said simply. “You did everything I asked. I’m happy how things turned out.”

“You are— Oh, Elijah,” Connor murmured, snagging his sire by his sleeve when they drew close to him. For a moment, Nines felt like he was forgotten entirely. Connor pulled free from his grip and moved into Kamski’s space instead, looking into his eyes with a soft, intimate smile that reminded Nines of why he’d kept his distance all this time. “Are you finished terrorizing the Enforcers here?”

Kamski tucked an errant lock of hair behind Connor’s ear. “I suppose I should be asking you that,” he said, his voice just as pervasive and seductive as memory recalled. Nines felt stifled when his gaze moved onto him. “Is everything to your satisfaction now, K—”

“It’s Nines,” Nines cut in before he could finish saying what he’d been about to say. “And yes, it is. Thank you for your help.”

A pause. Kamski nodded graciously and said nothing more of it. Connor looked between the two of them, no doubt sensing the tension in the air. “He’s left the organization. I believe we’ve managed to make our support clear so he doesn’t run into any problems because of it.” Connor smoothed his hand down the breast of his sire’s suit, brows knitted in pensive frustration. “About that… Are you going to be okay?” Connor asked, looking up at him with big brown eyes. He bit his lip and wrinkled his nose as he glanced around the office. “I’m sure Elijah can find you a place at one of our companies.”

It was a generous offer. Anyone else might jump at the prospect. “No, thank you.” He didn’t need the charity. He began to fold his arms over his chest only to stop when Connor reached out to cover his elbow with his hand. Instinct warred it out with self-preservation. One screamed at him to lean into it while the other begged him to run away. 

“Please, Nines,” Connor whispered, pulling away from his sire to meet him halfway. The old nickname sounded so natural on his tongue. “It’s no trouble. I want to take care of you.”

The impulses fell silent. Nines struggled to find his voice. His eyes stung suddenly, and wasn’t that strange? Not much had happened today and yet he felt rubbed raw, worn around the edges and liable to rip at the smallest of touches. Connor had always tried to take care of him. That’s what big brothers did, wasn’t it? Even after decades. Even after an eternity of chasing a flighty, dodgy little brother who really should know better by now. 

Connor was relentless like that. He could run for another decade and know that somehow he’d still wind up back here, Connor looking up at him like he hung the moon and hadn’t made him chase him around it a dozen times over. 

Nines slowly reached out and covered Connor’s hand with his own. “It’s fine,” he said, squeezing his brother’s hand. “I’ve got an idea of what I want to do next. Will…” He swallowed, forcing himself to ask. To just ask for what he knew would be freely given. “Will you help me get it all in order?”

Connor smiled. Something in Nines’s chest gave a squeeze that was echoed by the hand in his own. “Of course,” he said softly. His eyes looked damp. “Of course, anything you need.”

This was something Nines had forgotten, this… warmth. This lightness in his stomach, the tingling in his fingertips. Connor let out a shaky breath and let his hand fall away from Nines’s. “It’s been awhile since you’ve let me help you,” he said, setting his hand on Nines’s arm to give his bicep a squeeze. Nines could remember when they were the same size, way back when they were children. Connor had to crane his neck now to meet his eye. He furrowed his brow. “What changed?”

Shrugging felt better than answering. Somehow, Connor still knew what he meant anyway. A bubble of laughter split his lips into a wide, goofy grin. “It’s that human you met, isn’t it?” he guessed, a mind-reader even now. “You really like him.”

It was both terrible and exhilarating to know that with just a look Connor could transport them both back to their teenage years of awkward crushes and poorly kept secrets. Nines felt his heart clench, his gaze averting in his customary tell. “It’s… I don’t want to talk about it here.” Too many ears listening, too many cutthroats searching for a way to get ahead. Nines licked his lips nervously and carefully met Connor’s gaze. “I’ll text you with the details of what my plans are,” Nines said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled, faded business card, handing it to Connor with a meaningful look. “You’ll need this to start getting things in order. We can move on from there.”

Connor took the card and scanned it quickly. He handed it to his sire and it disappeared into one of the pockets on Kamski’s suit jacket. “How about this: You’ll  _ text  _ me with a time and place.” Connor looped his arm through his sire’s, his cheek resting against his shoulder. “We can  _ talk  _ about it in person. There’s… Well, there’s a lot of catching up we need to do.”

Nines let out a breath through his nose. Arguing with Connor was the same as fighting a losing battle. There was more grace in capitulation than stubborness in some ways. “Fine.” He watched Connor hug Kamski’s arm to his chest in his excitement over the small victory. “Sounds like a plan.” The sight of them together still made something tighten in the pit of his stomach. It was an ugly feeling. He swallowed it down. Now wasn’t the time for it. Not when he owed them both for this and so much more.

The conversation was over. They both knew it, but getting Connor to go wasn’t easy. He lingered there, clutching his sire close, searching for topics to prolong the conversation. Nines put up with it. It was the least he could do for all he’d asked of them, but before long it became clear there was nothing left to talk about— At least, not here. There were Enforcers in the building, many at their desks, all watching with narrowed eyes and perked ears, desperate to learn who these strangers were and what they had to do with Internal Affairs. 

_ Ex-Internal Affairs,  _ Nines clarified silently. It made him giddy just thinking about it. 

“We should be off, love,” Elijah Kamski eventually crooned into the shell of Connor’s ear. He gave Nines an apologetic—if albeit awkward—smile. “You probably have much you need to do.”

Connor’s face fell when Nines nodded. “I do.” He had more bridges to burn, affairs to put into order. 

“I’ll see you soon then,” Connor said, biting at his bottom lip. “Right?”

“Yeah.” Nines smiled. It felt more genuine than he’d intended it too, but then again, he hadn’t expected this sort of reunion to feel as good as it did now. “Soon.”

“Good.” Connor looked up at his sire and the look they shared was… It made Nines want to look away. They didn’t need words to communicate. Elijah smiled a barely-there smile, his eyes saying what words couldn’t in the moment. Connor looked at Nines. “I love you. You know that, right?”

Nines’s throat felt tight. He looked at the floor. “Yes, Connor.” He’d made it hard to doubt it, and Nines had always been the worst at resisting it. It took distance to keep him from crumbling under the weight of it. 

“I’m glad.” A pause. The floor creaked and Nines lifted his head just in time to see a blur move towards him.

Connor’s scent washed over him like an evening breeze, unchanged after decades and distance and the foreign blood running through his dead veins. The embrace was… devastating. Nines felt his body lock up tight, his arms trapped at his sides by Connor’s. Everyone stared now, unabashed and curious enough to fill the stale air ten times over. 

“Thank you,” Connor whispered, too soft for anyone else to hear. “For reaching out. For letting me help you.”

Nines inhaled. He bowed his head and hide his face in his brother’s shoulder. “Connor…” His voice wavered dangerously. Connor let out a shaky laugh of his own and slowly released his hold, hands on his arms as he held him at arm’s length. 

“I know, I know,” he said, wiping at his eyes with the tips of his fingers. His smile was watery but still so fucking strong. “I’m leaving now. Text me, please? And not just about your details. I… I missed talking to you,” he whispered, squeezing Nines’s arm firmly. “So much.”

Nines said nothing. He didn’t know what to say to that, and he had a feeling even if he did he wouldn’t get the words out regardless. His throat was tight, his lips trembling the way they always had before he cried. It’d been… God, decades since he’d last let himself do something like that. He hated crying. He hated it and he knew Connor knew that, and he knew that was the real reason for Connor letting go of him completely and retreating back to his sire’s side. Even after all this time Connor still knew him so well. 

Elijah cupped Connor’s cheek and wiped away his tears. A whisper of concern came next, waved off with a shake of Connor’s head. Nines watched them leave, arm in arm. That... feeling was back. It was weaker now though. Manageable. 

Taking in a shaky breath, Nines rubbed tiredly at his eyes. The night had hardly started and he already felt like it had lasted ten lifetimes. The sound of whispers rose up behind him in a wave as familiar to him as breathing. The gossip was starting already. Leave it to the Enforcers to hold two Luminary elites in their midst and immediately snap back into disorder the moment they were out of earshot. 

“The fuck are you loomin’ there for?” James exclaimed as he turned the corner, arms filled with sheaves of paper to feed his typewriter’s screeching maw. He sneered an ugly smile and caught the sight of Connor and his sire disappearing down the stairs. “Who the fuck was that?”

Nines let out a weak sigh and contemplated what sort of lie he could give to explain away all they’d just seen. An old acquaintance maybe, or some pleased victims of a crime come to thank him for his help in the solving of their case. There were infinite ways to distance himself from Connor and Kamski. Nines licked at his lips and frowned when the taste was bitter. He stood a little straighter when he realized he’d grown sick of the taste of lying about who he was. 

“My brother,” he said firmly. “And his sire.”

James scoffed and pushed past him to return to his desk. “Your kin? Poor bastard.”

“Maybe so,” Nines replied. But he still came when he was called. That had to mean something in the grand scheme of things. 

It was a work in progress, and that was more than he’d had in a long while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter to go :3 just a heads up: yougei and i are planning on making a letifer charm that we will be selling through his etsy store soon. follow me on twitter @tdcloud_writes and him @_yougei for info on when to expect that to happen. there will be more news on future projects and what not after chapter 19 is completed. we're nearly done guys OvO i hope youre enjoying the ride.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time coming but we're finally here. Enjoy the last chapter of Letifer and check out the end notes for information on the future of this fic and the universe at large.

If Gavin had a list of his top ten best ways to wake up, cold and sore in a nauseatingly white hospital room wouldn’t be on it. It wouldn’t be _remotely_ close to it. The only factor keeping it within the same universe was that it meant he had to be alive to wake up. After the night Gavin had had…

Well, he supposed he should be thankful he could wake up at all.

His body ached as he slowly checked out how badly he was hurt. His chest felt sore, his left hand stiff and unwieldy. Gavin licked at chapped lips and winced when his tongue glided over a stinging cut that threatened to open back up. “Jesus Christ,” he said aloud, wincing again when his voice came out rough like sandpaper. He wanted to sit up but he had a feeling he’d regret trying the second he lifted his head.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” a low grumble of a voice sounded off to the side. “It’s about time you woke up.”

Gavin’s eyes widened and he looked to the right of the machines beeping quietly away at his bedside. Half hidden behind a handful of IV tubing and a particularly enormous bundle of heart shaped balloons sat the last person he expected ever to see in a place like this.

Gavin licked again at his lips and winced at the resulting sting. Well, maybe that wasn’t quite true. He’d put his money on the Lieutenant visiting him on his sickbed before he put it on Nines after how they left things before.

Christ, somehow that hurt more than everything else wrong with him. “They couldn’t find a cuter nurse?” he said, half out of it and aching from head to toe. “Jesus, what the hell happened to me? I feel like I got worked over by a meat tenderizer.”

Anderson just rolled his eyes. “From what I saw inside that house, you probably aren’t that far off the mark. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Reed.”

Gavin closed his own. “This really is the worst wake up call ever.” He wondered about the gifts strewn around him. Some were probably from Tina, the rest from his coworkers. Did Nines send anything? God, he wasn’t sure if he had the balls to check. Gavin had the sneaking suspicion there’d be no name on the card to prove it either way.

A clearing of the throat prompted him to open an eye. Lieutenant Anderson was leaning forward now, elbows resting on his thighs. He looked kind of angry.

Gavin raised a brow. Even that managed to hurt somehow. “Aren’t there rules about visiting hours and waking up patients for shit like this?” He fussed with his blanket and tried to pull it closer, but he had the dexterity of a hamster with his hand all splinted up. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you, sir, but I gotta admit I didn’t think you’d be the one sitting at my bedside all night.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “You’ve been out for five hours, so it wasn’t all night.” He nodded his head at the little rolly desk thing beside him. It held a crumpled bag from a donut shop and a paper cup with coffee stains around the lid. “And don’t worry, I didn’t sit on my ass watching you sleep all that time either.”

“Thank God,” Gavin mumbled. He wrinkled his nose and tried to ignore his cotton mouth. “Did everything work out with the arrest?”

There was a pause. The Lieutenant leaned forward in his seat, stroking a hand through his beard. “We got the Price kid in custody just fine. You wouldn’t think so hearing the way he keeps hollering, but he’s put away and not going anywhere any time soon. Glad you mentioned him though, ‘cause there are a lot of people wondering how the fuck you figured out who it was killing all those people.” He let his hand fall into his lap, his blue eyes going hard. “You know we don’t assign these types of cases to beat cops.”

Gavin grimaced. “Do we really have to hash this out now?” His hearing was dull on one side, his head still vaguely ringing. He lifted a hand to prod at it and found thick gauze covering his ear completely. Huh. He sucked on his tongue, aching for a drink and some painkillers, maybe a few more hours of sleep. He made sure to tell Hank as much, hoping for an ounce of pity.

Instead, Hank just reached for a styrofoam cup sporting a straw hidden behind his takeout bag. He must’ve anticipated this and took measures to make sure there’d be no excuses on delaying this debriefing. “Here,” he said, transferring it to his uncoordinated, bruised hands. “And yeah, we really, really do.”

Gavin let out a sigh and bought himself a few seconds as he sipped his room temperature water until he drained the cup dry. Telling the truth was out. Talking about Nines was out, and even if it wasn’t, he figured he’d been hurt enough physically to turn him off of masochism like that entirely. The straw rattled in his cup as he clumsily handed it back to Hank. He needed to make sure all his answers boiled down to the same sentiment. The same no-vampires-were-involved-in-the-solving-of-this-case sentiment.

“Right place at the right time, sir, and a hell of a lot of luck.” As far as non-committal answers went, it was pretty by the book.

Hank frowned. “How long were you working on this case under our noses.”

Gavin shrugged and picked at the bandages wrapped around his thumb. “A few months.” He must’ve torn something when they put it back in. It really wasn’t as easy as the movies made it look at all.

“Where did you get your leads?”

He didn’t even bother to look up this time. “Combed old case files and found an established pattern. Good old-fashioned legwork did the rest.”

“Really. Chen said you were working with someone. Who was it?”

Gavin’s mouth tasted bitter. He plucked at the sterile hospital gown hiding the worst of his bruises. “A concerned citizen,” he said slowly, hating how it added to the distance between him and Nines. There was too much of it there already, and some part of him still couldn’t process the fact that he’d just… walked off like that. No backward glance, no nothing. “One that prefers to remain anonymous.”

“You know that’s not gonna fly here.”

Gavin met the Lieutenant’s gaze evenly. “It’s going to have to,” he said simply. “I found your cop-killer. I’m not going to hand you my informant too.” He glanced past Hank’s shoulder and found himself fighting a smile. “Who the hell bought me a cat plushie?”

Hank frowned and twisted around in his seat. The cat was nestled behind a stack of cards, its tawny ears just peeking out from behind them. Hank reached over and snagged it, handing it to Gavin with a smile he couldn't seem to hide. “I think Chen said something about you needing some pussy in your line of sight else you were likely to take forever to get better.”

Gavin laughed so hard that it hurt. He wiped tears from his eyes when the laughter sparked a coughing fit. The cat was soft against his cheek. Hank got up and refilled his cup of water, setting it close to him so he could reach it.

“I should probably tell the nurses you’ve rejoined the living,” he said quietly, not bothering to sit back down. “They weren’t all that keen on letting me in here to begin with, much as I know you love my company.”

Gavin swallowed down a mouthful of water, cat toy tucked neatly in the crook of his arm. “We done with the third degree then?”

“For the moment.” Hank shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at Gavin. “Good work, Reed. You probably won’t hear that from the brass for awhile, but you deserve to hear someone say it. Just, next time? Call for backup,” the Lieutenant suggested, lips curled into a frown while his tone was wryly humored. “We’re a team at the precinct, not one-man wrecking crews.”

He fiddled with the cup in his hand, eyes skimming the floor. “I’ll do that, sir,” Gavin said.

He’d called for backup just fine, but they didn’t need to know that.

Walking into the DPD precinct a week later proved to be a lesson in dichotomy.

For starters, Gavin had worked there for years. Every night he came in the same two doors, walked past the same security desk, and went up the same elevator. He saw the same faces, grunted out the same old greetings to cops just as sleep-deprived as he was. There was nothing here that surprised him anymore. The routine was utterly rote by now. Second nature.

Except this time, it wasn’t. This time he had a weight on his hip that made its presence known every single step he took through those familiar halls, up that familiar elevator.

His uniform was gone, replaced by plainclothes. He’d thought the change would make him feel less like a cop, less official, but it turned out to be the opposite. Gavin covered the detective’s badge clipped to his belt with his splinted hand, fighting a smile that tugged at his split lip. The sting had nothing on the pride welling up in his chest. The path he walked was so familiar but this one little thing changed everything about it.

This had been such a long time coming that he really should’ve figured it would take a case steeped in the preternatural to make it finally happen.

It hadn’t been easy dealing with the fallout though. Devon had been arrested and instantly labeled a crackpot for the outlandish shit he’d spewed upon regaining consciousness, and with the media the way it was, every news channel in the country ate it up as quickly as they could. Vampires this, vampires that, don’t put me in a cell because I’ll just break out once my teeth grow back. Gavin rolled his eyes as the doors of the elevator opened with a quiet ding. Just as he’d promised Nines, no one believed a word of it.

Anderson hadn’t liked that crazy act one bit, but the press coverage was too positive and Gavin so easily laudable as the hero that even the top brass couldn’t argue too much against an easy conviction. Even with murky spots still obfuscating exact details on the how’s and why’s, the commendation was practically guaranteed, and in the end it had been. The badge was deposited in his lap while he was still hooked up to an IV in the hospital, hand bandaged to hell and back and nearly too clumsy to pick the damn thing up.

Gavin stepped out onto his floor and looked up at the bright fluorescent lights. A few officers milling about in the hall before shift start looked his way, throwing him encouraging smiles and more than a few looks of hungry curiosity. He’d woken up to something similar in the hospital after Anderson’s first visit and he’d learned a lot more about what happened with everything that night. Apparently he’d passed out halfway through reporting to Hank on the street, and Tina had ridden with him in the ambulance. She’d filled him in while clutching his good hand, deep bruises under her eyes and a look on her face that told him he had answers he owed to more than just the brass now.

He’d given her an abridged account of what actually happened, vampiric involvement notwithstanding. It hadn’t satisfied her completely, but he had a feeling in the end she was just glad he was still alive to bullshit her at all.

“Looking good, Detective Reed,” Ben Collins called out from his spot by the wall, snapping Gavin back into the present. His coffee mug was balanced precariously on his stack of folders, his own badge hanging from around his neck like a show of solidarity. The officer at his side held a clipboard in her hands. Routine report. That’d be his life soon enough, answering questions and approving all sorts of things.

Gavin snorted and let his hand fall back down to his side. “Thanks,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. The badge was shiny enough to distract most people from the current state of his face and body. “You guys finish processing that arrest yet?”

Ben rolled his eyes and gave the officer next to him a knowing look. “Newbies,” he said, sotto voce. “Had his shield a week and he thinks he’s top dog.”

“Solve any serial murder cases lately, Collins?” he tossed back with a grin. “No? Just me?”

Raising a brow, Ben flashed him a smile back. “Live it up while you can, Reed. You’ve already got a new stack of cases on your desk to look forward to.” He took the clipboard from the officer and flipped through the forms with a muted frown that morphed into a grimace. He’d know that paperwork-pessimism anywhere. Gavin took it as his cue to go before seniority dictated Ben delegate.

“Yeah, well, I’ll just keep on solving them and put your arrest record to shame,” he said, moving on down the hall. He raised his fucked-up hand in a wave, only to stop short when Ben kept on talking.

“Make sure you let your new partner know that,” he chuckled, and Gavin slowly turned on his heel to stare at the older detective. Ben’s round face was ruddy with mirth. “If you’re gonna be an overachiever he’s got a right to know how you expect him to spend all his weekends.”

A strange buzzing noise sounded in Gavin’s ears. He blinked a few times. “My… My what now?”

Ben gave the officer watching the goings-on a knowing look. She smiled, her cheeks going pink. “Guess they decided to keep a surprise,” he said, looking at Gavin indulgently. “You’re in for a treat I think. He’s a new transfer. Real polite. He even thanked me for before.”

“For before…?”

Ben just shooed him towards the bullpen. “I’m not gonna spoil the surprise.”

If someone had asked Gavin the best way to welcome him back to work, a surprise of any kind would be the exact opposite of how he’d want it to go down. Frankly, he’d had his fill of surprises, and if any of his coworkers had known how the last few months of his life had been, he had a sneaking suspicion they’d understand completely. It was because of the growing feeling of dread pooling in his stomach that Gavin departed without another word, turning woodenly on his heel. He moved at a very quick clip, and more than a few people noticed.

“Evening, Detective—”

Gavin grunted and didn’t even turn to look at the officer.

“Hey! How you feeling, Gav—”

“Later,” he muttered, sidestepping Person easily. There was a spot of burgundy near his desk cluster, a figure bent over and facing away to ostensibly put something in one of the bottom desk drawers. A dull ringing was beginning to blot out all other attempts to greet him. Gavin’s hands began to sweat. His heart pounded so fast that it was beginning to hurt.

The world slowed down and Gavin was sucked back to the moment of that night on the street outside of the Price house. His breath came short and his vision tunneled. The person at his desk slowly stood up to full height, turning with a grace Gavin had only seen one other person command.

“What is this?” Gavin whispered, his mouth bone dry. He locked his knees to keep from stumbling. He looked at a face he’d told himself he’d never see again. “What… How…?”

A face stripped from his dreams looked at him dead on. “Good evening, Detective Reed. I’m Detective Nines Arkay,” Nines said, a Mona Lisa smile of unsaid truth resting on his perfect pale-pink lips. There was a beat of silence and an almost self-deprecating look towards the floor. “I’m your new partner.”

Instincts were a fickle thing. Gavin dealt with them every day on the job. The instinct to flinch in an altercation, to reach for his gun when self-preservation screamed at him that something was wrong. In the past few months since learning that vampires were more than just movie monsters and bad Halloween costumes, Gavin and instinct had become fast friends. He’d learned to listen to it. This time… he didn’t.

Something told him it might cause a kerfuffle if he tackled his new partner to the floor and made out with him on top of a bed of case files.

It was a hell of a thing to resist, even knowing that. Nines was… Fuck, he was so gorgeous. They’d known each other for a few months at this point and he’d had the pleasure of seeing the vampire in a lot of revealing outfits. Hell, he’d seen him in his old hoodie, his t-shirts, and while Gavin had thought that was the peak of sexy Nines could be, apparently he was dead wrong.

Nines was dressed fit to kill in a gorgeous vest and rolled up shirtsleeves. The outfit was clearly tailored, clinging to his shape to the point that it pained Gavin deep in his core to look at him without touching. The dark, mulled wine fabric made his blue eyes stand out like chips of sapphire. Gavin’s mouth went dry and he wished he had the mental capacity to be embarrassed at how poetic he was becoming at the sight of him. He figured he was allowed this, at least for a minute or two. The last time he’d seen Nines he’d been wearing a color a lot less fetching than what his shirt boasted. The last time they’d been together…

Gavin sucked in a shaky breath and forced himself to stay calm. “Excuse me?” he said tightly, not missing how his voice threatened to crack around the edges. It wasn’t socially acceptable to throw yourself into the arms of a supposed-to-be stranger. His heart pounded so hard in his chest that he could barely hear himself think, but he was… he was pretty sure he couldn’t throw himself at Nines and make it out of here with his dignity—or sanity—intact.

Nines parted his lips to answer. His eyes widened slightly a split second before Gavin lurched forward, a heavy weight plastered against his back.

“I see you met the newbie,” Tina declared, her arm wrapped around the back of Gavin’s head. All of her weight settled on top of him, threatening to drag him to the floor. She dug her knuckles into Gavin’s scalp, the noogie somehow worse than the shock at war with his composure. She still hadn’t forgiven him for the scare he’d given her with his misguided heroics, and she made sure he knew that every single time they were together. “Why didn’t you tell me he was a cop? Here I was thinking you were dating an escort!”

“Tina, what the fuck—”

She paused in her bullying long enough to shoot her hand out to Nines. “I’m Tina by the way,” she said with a grin Gavin could feel. He wrestled her off of him and pushed away as Nines looked at her hand and slowly extended his own, giving it a quick shake. “You’ve probably seen me before, but I gotta say it’s weird seeing you wearing a shirt that actually covers all of your chest.”

The tease of a blush kissed the tops of Nines’s cheekbones. He retracted his hand and crossed his arms, clearly embarrassed. “I was working for a different organization before,” he said, shifting a little until his hip was propped against the edge of the desk. “My case necessitated some… hands-on undercover work, and those outfits were part of my cover.” He met Tina’s gaze with a shy sort of smile. “I don’t think I’ll be wearing them into the office any time soon. Sorry to get your hopes up.”

“Oh?” Her face folded into a pitying frown. “That’s a shame. Things might liven up around here if we all wore outfits like yours from then. It was, ah…” She tried to fight the grin but couldn’t. “Very becoming on you. Got the blood pumping, you feel me? Just ask Gavin, he knows what I’m talking about.”

Ears burning, Gavin resisted the urge to bodycheck his best friend back into her own desk cluster. “Tina, can you not be a walking sexual harassment lawsuit for five minutes?” God, he’d forgotten this wasn’t the first time Nines had been here. He bit down on his lip and stifled a short huff. “So, undercover work, huh? Must’ve been challenging.” That was a completely normal thing to say to a new partner, right? God, he really needed to lie down for a minute. This was too much to take it.

Nines’s smile was indulgent. He gave a demure shrug. “It had its own rewards,” he said, looking up at Gavin from beneath his lashes. It was as if he were trying to kill Gavin dead. “I have a feeling I’ll find this new assignment much, much more rewarding though.”

Tina gave a snort and smacked her hand down on Gavin’s shoulder, eliciting a bit more than just a wince. “With Gavin as your partner? Fat chance.” Her eyes glinted with knowing glee. “Bet you’ll have him running outta here like a bat out of hell within the week.”

In all the time Gavin had known Nines, he’d never seen him grin. Smile, sure. Laugh, on occasion. But grin? Teeth showing, eyes crinkled, shit-eating grin? It turned out tonight was a night of firsts, and Gavin couldn’t even blame him for giving in when she made it so fucking easy. “Like a bat, huh?” he mused, turning to look at Gavin knowingly. “That certainly bodes well for our partnership.”

Partnership. Huh. Gavin took him in, took in the easy way he smiled, the confident way he held himself. He’d been hard at work digging through the stack of folders outlining their next case, and the evidence of his eagerness was clear to anyone who knew him at all. There was no ounce of the haunted tension he’d had before, sitting beside him on that curb. Gavin worried the split in his lip. He turned to look at Tina.

“Hey, Teen? Think you could get us some coffee?” he asked suddenly, needing to know more than Nines could say in front of her.

She crossed her arms in disbelief. “You want _me_ to bring you coffee?” She snorted a little. “Thought you were too good to drink the office sludge?”

“Yeah, well, something tells me it can’t be worse than the hospital shit I’ve been drinking. And besides,” he said, giving her a withering look. “Someone helped herself to all my beans while she fed my fucking cat while I was gone, so I think the least you can do is caffeinate me with your poison of choice.”

Tina laughed, rolling her eyes. “What can I say? You told me you’d introduce me to the magic of a Keurig and you succeeded.” She waved at them and turned on her heel. “I’ll be right back. Nines, how do you like your coffee?”

Nines balked a little. “Black?” he said, glancing at Gavin for a second. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“A man after my own heart,” Tina answered easily. “Be right back.” They both watched her as she walked away. Gavin listed against the side of the desk, the relief of not being found out palpable between them.

“Well, that was close,” he muttered, propping himself back up. He grimaced a bit. “Can’t believe I made her think I prefer drinking shit over no coffee at all.”

“Gavin, I can’t drink things like that,” Nines said, eyes following Tina as she slipped into the break room and no doubt began prodding away at the shitty coffee machine. “I don’t want to be rude—”

“I’ll drink it for you, so don’t worry about it,” he interrupted, glancing around to see who was closest to them. Ben had migrated into the office at this point but looked to be busy going through the memos on his desk. Person was off in the break room too, chatting away with Tina. He nearly snorted at that. Gossiping more like. No one was looking their way though, so more power to them.

Gavin looked at Nines again. His expression fell. “I… Wow. I legitimately don’t know what to say now,” he admitted after a moment of just staring. Just staring in disbelief, in shock, in quietly building hope he’d forced himself to swallow down every single time he’d thought about seeing Nines again. It’d been too painful to entertain before. Now he kind of wished he’d been more masochistic. It might have prepared him better to live that reality now. “I never thought I’d see you again. I went to your place and you weren’t there. The super told me you broke your lease.”

Nines’s placid moux cracked around the edges. He ducked his head and looked at his barren desk. There wasn’t much on it yet to signal it had a proper owner. No pictures, no plants, no personality. “I’m sorry,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest as if to make himself smaller. “I didn’t even know my plan would work.”

Worrying his split lip, Gavin inched a little closer. “What plan? This? To come here?” God, he wanted to touch him. This couldn't be real. “I called you like, a thousand times, Nines. I could have helped if this was your end goal. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you just… I don’t know, talk to me about this?”

He lifted his head and pinned Gavin in place with his sharp, blue gaze. He probably didn’t mean to, but being cut off from him cold turkey had left Gavin woefully susceptible to every part of him. “I didn’t know if it would work,” he repeated, a note of longing in his voice that threatened to stop Gavin’s heart cold. “If it hadn’t, I couldn’t let you be close to me. I couldn’t let them find you.”

“What did you do?” Gavin ask, taking another step closer. “You don’t have a work history. You couldn't have just transferred in like you were just some other cop from a different department.” Something like this, it would’ve taken bribes. “Did the Enforcers set you up here?”

Nines bit at his bottom lip. The sight made Gavin want to die a little bit. “I quit my old job actually,” he said quietly. “I… asked someone else for help to get this one.”

“Who did you ask?” Gavin looked Nines up and down, noting how he avoided his eyes. Nines had never been very good about being forthright. Sometimes the best way to a quick answer was to find it yourself. Gavin took in the way he held himself, the new clothes, the subtle color in his cheeks. He’d fed recently, and better than he normally did. Who could have helped him get this far? There couldn’t be many options. Nines didn’t have friends in high places—

He didn’t have friends in high places. He had family.

“No,” Gavin whispered, leaning closer to catch Nines’s attention. “You asked your brother?”

There was a beat of loaded silence. “I want this,” Nines whispered. “I’ve never wanted anything as bad as I want this.”

He had to mean it. Nothing else could have made him reach out to the one person he made it clear he didn’t want to see. “But your other job…” Gavin tried to not grimace. “I thought… I thought you had to, like, that I couldn’t…” He trailed off. There was no good way to say it. To say that Nines was supposed to kill him. He took in a deep breath and wished they were alone. “Nines—”

A hand landed on his arm, grip firm for a split second before loosening almost immediately. Gavin stared at it, stared at how tense Nines was, clearly fighting with himself. His hand dragged down Gavin’s arm before falling away completely. He looked anywhere but at Gavin. “I want you, Gavin,” he said almost too softly to be anything but imagined. Nines took in a shuddery breath. “I understand if you don’t feel the same way.”

Gavin’s heart stuttered in his chest. “Feel the same… Nines, Jesus Christ, I told you how I felt before.” Nines lifted his head a little, expression torn. “I didn’t change my mind,” he said, aching so much that it was unreal. “God, I’m just… I can’t even believe this is happening. That you’re here.”

Nines’s eyes widened a little, his lips parting as if he hadn’t believed Gavin might still want him back. But he did. He’d never stopped wanting him, and now Nines was here, wanting him too.

God, it really was like a dream. Gavin let out a shaky breath. “I want to kiss you so fucking bad right now.”

Pale-pink bloomed on the crests of Nines’s cheeks. He smoothed his hands down his impeccable suit vest and cleared his throat a little. “I’d like that too,” he admitted. He folded his arms across his chest, more bashful than uncomfortable.

“You know you’re coming home with me tonight, right?” Gavin licked at his lips a little, the back of his neck growing warm. “I think Tildie missed you almost as much as I did.” She’d found his old t-shirt under the barstools and made it her new favorite nap place. If that didn’t speak volumes, Gavin didn’t know what did. Gavin cleared his throat. “Y’know, if you want to. If you’ve got somewhere else to be it’s totally fine and—”

“Gavin.”

Gavin swallowed, aching to close the distance. “Yeah?”

Nines’s eyes danced. Somehow it was answer enough.

“Coffee’s here, boys,” Tina’s voice thundered halfway across the room. Gavin’s heart lurched in his chest for a very different reason, and the two of them jolted apart even though they hadn’t gotten that much closer to one another during her absence. Gavin rubbed at the back of his neck for want of something to do, only to lower his hand immediately when Tina bumped him with her shoulder and grumbled, “Well, fucking take one of these before I spill it all over you, Gav.”

To Nines she was infinitely more polite. “Here you go, Nines,” she said, handing him his cup with consummate care. She tilted her head to the side a bit and took a sip of her own mug. “Nines is an odd name, isn’t it? Did you keep that from your undercover op?”

Nines shook his head and held the tacky DPD mug with both hands. “It’s an old nickname my brother gave me. Our parents used to mess up our names, so I took to using it instead.”

Tina raised her mug in salute, extending it to tap it against Nines’s gently. “I’ll drink to that.” She reached out to tap her mug to Gavin’s next, eyes softening a bit as she looked at him. “And to good friends, new and old too while I’m at it.”

Gavin sighed fondly. She knew just what to say to make him drink her piss-coffee. And it was actually piss, just like he remembered it being the first time he forgot his travel mug and resigned himself to drinking the office swill: black, sludge-like, and as shitty as the tar they used to fix the street outside. Tina laughed at his grimace and eagerly pounded hers back like a pro. Nines brought the mug to his own lips and mimed drinking for politeness sake, and then set his down on his desk as inconspicuously as he could. Gavin resigned himself to drinking both cups. God, the things he did for love.

Gavin nearly dropped his cup when the thought caught up with him. He vaguely heard Nines thank Tina for her warm welcome. He set the mug down and watched Nines light up when Tina laughed and teased him some more. He’d never seen Nines look so comfortable, so… so utterly unburdened. It made his chest tight in a weird, welcome way. He wanted to see Nines laugh. He wanted to see him smile that big, open smile. He just… god, he just wanted to see Nines this happy all the time.

 _Huh,_ he thought to himself. _So this is what love feels like._

A harsh elbow dug into his side. Gavin recoiled and rubbed at the sore spot, shooting a glare at Tina. “What the fuck do you want, Chen?” he grunted. “Don’t you have a space heater to make out with?”

She kicked out her foot and tapped him in the shin with the tip of her not-really-steel-toed boot. “I was just asking if you think you can manage to hold onto a partner for longer than five minutes,” she said, crossing her arms knowingly. “You’ve got a reputation now for being a lone wolf, y’know.”

“Lone wolf?” Nines echoed with a slight smile. “Really?”

“Oh, boy, are you in for a wake-up call.” Tina looped her hands behind her head and gave him a pitying look. “My bet’s on you requesting a transfer in a week. Collins gives you two three days before you’re at each other’s throats.”

At each other’s throats, huh? Gavin side-eyed Nines with a smug sort of grin. Too late for that.

Nines rested his hands against the desk and turned his face towards Gavin like he knew what he was thinking and could barely hold a grin of his own. His left hand, the one closest to him, slipped behind the mountain of folders with nary a whisper. “I don’t know,” he said, soft and open, the opposite of how he’d been when they last stood here in the precinct together, more secrets between them than kind words. “I think I can last a bit longer than that.”

Gavin settled his hand over Nines’s cooler one, hiding it behind the stack of new case files. Nines looped their fingers together. His were cool, smooth. It wasn’t enough contact at all given how long Nines had kept him waiting for something like this. For something more.

“Yeah,” he said, bumping their hips just a little. “I think this will work out just fine.”

Though, Gavin had a feeling they had all the time in the world to make up for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're here! We're at the end! It took a right side longer than I expected but I'm glad to say I've really enjoyed the journey here. I hope you guys have as well, and I'm really happy to say that if you're sad this story has come to a close... Well :) let's just say it hasn't. Not entirely.
> 
> When I first began serious work on this fic I planned for it to just be that: a fic. As I hope most of you know by now, I write books when I'm not writing various smutty things for you guys here on ao3. I made the decision to set this fic in a universe I've been building for over a year now as the setting to a book series I'm hard at work on. Over the course of writing Letifer I realized it had a lot of potential as a standalone book in that series, and I'm happy to announce I'll be turning this into original fiction probably by the end of next year. -cue kazoos-
> 
> What this means: If you liked this story and want more from it, you're likely to get it. I have no plans to immediately remove it from ao3, so you're free to enjoy this version indefinitely. Please follow me on twitter @tdcloud_writes or on my author tumblr tdcloud.tumblr.com for more info on the state of the series as I work on writing the rest of it. Likewise if you enjoyed how I wrote this story, please consider checking out my original work at tdcloudofficial.com. Your readership allows me to keep writing as much as I do, and I really appreciate it!
> 
> Also, if you're sad the story is over, fear not. I'm already beginning my chapter notes on Apotheosis, a prequel fic to Letifer that takes place in the 1990s. In it we will see the journey Connor took when he met Elijah Kamski, Clan Elder of the Luminaries, and his foray into vampire culture and high society, and ultimately how he was accepted into the fold. There will be young human Nines in it as well, and plenty of more lore and backstory on how they fell out and got to where they were in Letifer. Keep an eye on my twitter for news on when to expect that fic to happen. I've got a few other things I need to tackle before I dive back into a huge chaptered fic project once more, but rest assured that its on its way. 
> 
> I think that's it for post-fic info! I sincerely hope you all have enjoyed the ride this fic has been. I know I have, and I want to thank each and every one of you who took the time to comment along the way. Your words, praise, and enthusiasm got me through this process when I wasn't very motivated to keep going, and it never fails to surprise me how much feedback like that helps when the road isn't as clear as it could be. Enjoy the work that follows this one, and as always, until next time <3


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